Date: 10/15/2008

Number: 1

With the frontal passage (2:45 here) and the wind turn, there are thousands of Monarchs passing over Utopia, most quite high, and on the winds doing 20+ MPH.
Bearing SSW to SW best they can in the wind.

I panned with binocs. Going across 90 degrees of skies, one binoc width, it took 20-seconds to count one hundred.
One field of view pan. There are a hundred of these FOV's in the sky, and it is full of Monarchs as far as I can see.
Sometimes there are 25 in a FOV at once.

going back outside to be awed.

Well it was 20,000 Monarchs at least, just that passed around me,
4 p.m. to 7 p.m.. At times it was 200-600 per minute, for over an hour.
I don't know how wide the river was, I could see them a half mile on either side of me. It was very likely many many more, and the number estimated I feel is a conservative minimum. WOW !!

Courtesy of Mike Quinn, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Utopia, TX

Latitude: 29.6 Longitude: -99.6

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