Date: 09/15/2010

Number: 500

September 18
My son and I hit the spit late Saturday afternoon (Sept 18) and thanks to a very helpful shuttle driver we found about five hundred monarchs roosting on the same tree as last Sunday. Again the light was bad and it was quite windy but I was able to get several good stills and videos with my SX210. We also saw many monarchs feeding from near the entrance all the way out to the bridge (a distance of about 3
kilometers) and on the other side of the bridge lots of monarchs were already flying into the trees north of the main road; I can't say for sure but my guess is that there were probably hundreds or even thousands roosting near the lighthouse at the end of the spit.

Considering the dull overcast conditions we were amazed to see so many monarchs both feeding and on the move. Tomorrow (Sunday) looks pretty good weather wise and we should have a bit of a mid week warm spell so monarch watching should be good for a while yet! Howard

September 15
I dropped down to the Toronto waterfront after work today and to the renowned Leslie Street Spit - a huge carpet of goldenrod this time of year - and encountered thousands, if not tens of thousands of monarchs there. Captured about 200 in 1.5 hours, sometimes capturing 4 at a time on a goldenrod stem. Then about 6:15 clouds moved in and with the approaching rains and cold front, they roosted and disappeared ever so suddenly about from the goldenrod. Found a number of small roosts on Manitoba maple and poplar, but there must be a larger roosts in the park. My observations were only from the base of the park near the main entrance. Cyclists who had been much further out report "tons" of monarchs and trees with roosts out there.

Toronto, ON

Latitude: 43.7 Longitude: -79.4

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