Date: 04/24/2014

Number: 1

We have lots of monarchs in our schoolyard habitat in Long Beach but no caterpillars lately. Last year our native milkweed patch (Asclepias fascicularis) hosted fifty at once!

It's an extremely windy day in SoCal, with fires blazing inland from the heat and Santa Ana winds. And the smoke is blowing from inland all the way to the coast, including Long Beach where our garden is. This monarch was "hiding" in the shade and shelter of a Mexican elderberry (Sambucus mexicana) and when I tried to take a pic he'd flee outside our chainlink fence, but then get chased back twice by a mourning cloak butterfly!

He eventually did land, I zoomed in, and I caught him on an elegant clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata). He also kept landing on a native thistle (Circium occidentale) of course.

Long Beach, CA

Latitude: 33.8 Longitude: -118.2

Observed by: Mike
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