Date: 03/20/2008
Number: 1
It was like one of the days in the middle of October, just that the monarchs were flying in the opposite direction!
I drove across town at 11:20 and a faded monarch passed in front of my windshield, 200 yards along a second, and while I was parking I saw another come by. After lunch a couple of us were outside and in ten minutes four more came by. That was it ... I went on safari and drove the county roads, streets in town, across the causeway, out onto the peninsula and my count was 32 monarchs between 11:22 and 1:30 and I took off about 20 minutes for lunch.
There are still monarchs coming by, I just went to the car wash and saw two go by while there plus two in the three blocks before I got home. This is the most monarchs I can ever remember seeing in one such short time in early spring ... it might have happened, I just don't remember. Every place in the county there would be a monarch coming by in a few minutes!
The ones I saw closeup were faded to very, very faded. I saw a few out in the country that were zig-zaging over the roadsides where I knew there should be milkweed sprouting, most were 3' to 20'. I got to run the compass on a few out in the cornfields and they were generally coming from 210d and heading to 30d. We had a 10 mph N wind, but turning to NE by 2:30, 72 dF, clear.
We had three lines come thru on Monday, the first put us under the severe thunderstorm/torando warning with a funnel cloud SSE of us near Copano Bay. Lots of 50 to 60 mph wind in that first line that stretched to well below Corpus. Second line brought the mud shower of dust out Mexico and a sprinkle at 10:00 and third line at 11:15 that left the mud. I wonder what affect a layer of gritty, red dust mud would have on the wings of monarchs wanting to fly on Tuesday morning. The ones I was seeing today
were making good time. ...
Port Lavaca, TX
Latitude: 28.6 Longitude: -96.6
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