Date: 08/21/2008

Number: 40

September 19
We still have a few Monarchs hanging around. The one in the photo seemed to have just hatched and was still a bit wobbly. Also we have had two roosts of butterflies that seem to have the same markings as the Monarchs but are about 2/3 the size of a Monarch. Any idea what they could be? I've seen a few of them each fall migrating at the same time as the Monarchs.

Sightings of roosts have been few and far between this Fall. We have had a reasonable number of them pass through here but they roost as widely scattered singles. I've not seen this before when they didn't roost together at night.

Editor's Note: The butterfly in this photo is a Viceroy. We are contacting the observer to clarify whether Viceroys may have been the butterfly she described roosting. However, she later provided images below of roosting monarchs.

September 2
We spotted a very small group of 6 or 7 Monarchs in a maple tree last evening. There were several others still milling around so the sighting was a dozen or less in all. The roost was too high in the tree to take pictures which was also unusual since they usually roost about 15 feet above the ground.

August 29
We saw our first small roost of about 30 monarchs on Friday, August 29. I walked around the farm grove that day looking for them in trees where they normally roost but didn't see any more.

I believe they stuck around for several days since we have had a strong south wind which would be unfavorable for their trek south. I just went out to check them again and they are still here today, September 2. At around noon today the wind switched from the south to the west and they seemed to be in the process of moving to a more secluded spot out of the wind. I would guess there were somewhere around 100 of them flying around near the maple trees. I did see one small roost of them, perhaps 20 in number.

I saw quite a bunch of them when I mowed the lawn yesterday (September 1). I took pictures that night. I believe it was the first bunch we saw Aug. 29 since they were in the same tree and on the same branch. Here is a picture of one roost where I count 39 or 40 Monarchs. There were more off to the left, farther back in the tree.

August 21


We had 2 small bunches of Monarchs roosting in the maples last night (8/21).
I can't say for certain that they didn't hatch here but it is about time for the migration. Also I don't know if the ones that hatch here also roost together at night? The second bunch was smaller than the one in the attached picture as my pictures just didn't turn out on that one. They were about 15 feet up in the tree. With the slight breeze and fog I got only a very blurry picture of the smaller bunch but did ok on the other one.

August 19

I haven't seen anything that looked like migration. We have quite a few that I'm confident have hatched here as I saw caterpillars in the milkweed all summer long and surely some of them have hatched. Also seeing a quite a few in the flower garden that we plant just for the Monarchs. The way it has been so cool all summer I'm expecting an early fall so I'll start watching closer now.

Buffalo Center, IA

Latitude: 43.3 Longitude: -93.9

Observed by: Betty
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