Date: 06/07/2008

Number: 1

Our first monarch appeared moments ago in the field beside our garden. A female, she laid eggs on several milkweed plants and stopped beside the garden to lay a final egg on our very own milkweed. Today is the first hot summer day of the season Temperatures are predicted to rise into the 90's due to a massive warm air mass that presently spans far to our north into Canada. Thanks to everybody to our south who provided the habitat this monarch needed in order to reach our backyard meadow!

This should be a good summer for monarchs here. This is the earliest I've seen a monarch; today's sighting was a full month earlier than 2006, for example. Dates of first monarchs here for the following years are:

6/7/08

6/24/07

7/7/06

6/21/05

7/25/03

June 11 update

I saw my second monarch of the season the morning of June 9th and my third on June 10th. Even though I was outdoors all weekend and watching for many hours, it was two days before I saw a 2nd monarch and another day before I saw my 3rd. In all three cases I saw the monarchs for a few seconds and could easily have missed them. Monarchs are so low in numbers at this time it would be easy to have missed my 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Norwich, VT

Latitude: 43.8 Longitude: -72.3

Observed by:
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