Date: 09/26/2011

Number: 11

Since seeing a monarch in the rain last Friday, I had high expectations for seeing a good number of them at National Zoo Monday (a mostly cloudy but very warm and dry 80º day), and I was not disappointed! I went to what seems to be their favorite clump of white butterfly bushes, and this time found nearly a dozen of them, YAY!!! It's even possible there were more, as these bushes are massive by this time of year, both quite wide and quite tall; the monarchs were top-to-bottom and side-to-side, some even overhead, and none of them still. SO exciting to see them at their peak! Even got a photo of one in the sunshine when it peaked out briefly:-)

Am making a separate report for this particular National Zoo sighting as I saw these six monarchs at a totally different time of day, near sunset, which seemed unusual, as they were still nectaring at the white butterfly bushes like crazy! They didn't seem to be ready to roost at this hour at all (6:45PM). I would've stayed even longer, but, unlike these butterflies, I wanted to head home before dark:-) I took some photos of course as again, couldn't quite believe it! Finding this year's monarch migration to be full of surprises, that's for sure!

Washington, DC

Latitude: 38.9 Longitude: -77

Observed by: Lisa
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