Date: 08/22/2012

Number: 300

Another good day....about 300 captured for tagging in about 3.5 hours of walking (with 1/2 hour lunch break. The question is....how long will this migration continue? A brief, strong migration that dies quickly? Night time temperatures again dropped to 50 F last night. Must return to Toronto briefly to take care of other business....and get more tags!

August 28
I arrived later than I had anticipated from Toronto, and headed out for my favorite clover field east of Cobourg. On the trip down from Toronto, Monarchs were seen along the Hwy. 401 expressway soaring westward. On arrival at this field about 1 pm, I noticed that the Monarchs were particularly fidgety and difficult to capture.

However, in about 3 hours, I had collected 170 Monarchs. The first 35 were carefully captured with a clean net and placed in clean envelopes for O.E. testing.

A couple of noticeable changes: these Monarchs seem to prefer the patches of red clover with the round flower heads vs. the smaller blue clover. Joe-Pye weed was also popular. As well, I was capturing many more beautiful large females, with thick dark veins.

We were promised rain last night, and some fell, but oh so little. Getting dry again. Next few days expected to be sunny with a few clouds. Night time low of 50 F tonight.

August 29
Dropped into my favorite field about 11 am (a field I have incorrectly called clover....it is alfalfa! with some red clover). There appeared to be very little activity in spite of the fact that outside of this area, Monarchs were streaming westward. After returning home to test 30 monarchs for the O.E. study, I returned at 2 pm to find Monarchs soaring on the westerly winds over the highway, fields, trees and homes. In two and a half hours, I had another 170 to tag. Feeding actively on alfalfa and clover, but sometimes challenging to capture.

August 30
I took a trip across Cobourg this morning and found monarchs fighting a strong westerly wind. Soaring high over town streets. Headed to my favorite ALFALFA fields (with some clover) and went to an area where a new structure called a "wind break" of trees had been planted along the road a long time ago - south to north. As I suspected, this windbreak provided shelter and a rest on alfalfa for the monarchs and they were really numerous here. After two hours and about 120 monarchs, I left.

Sadly, we are in another dry period and I am suddenly finding new eggs. Small milkweeds in fields are drying up. Even larger stalks drying up and turning tough. Will be hard for teachers to find caterpillars.

Cobourg, ON

Latitude: 44 Longitude: -78.2

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