Date: 09/16/2014

Number: 606

Today I counted 606 monarchs in 10 hours of a stationary spot at the shoreline of Lake Huron at Harrisville State Park. Weather was mostly sunny and winds were very light from the WSW. Temperature was 55F at the start of the count at 9AM and 63F at the end of the count at 7PM, with a high of 65F in between. Most of the monarchs flew 50-70' above the beach with a few at 300'. When the sun was out, the monarchs were high and with the clouds around the monarch flew lower and some landed on the beach or nectar on goldenrod or white asters. This is the highest peak day I have had here since September 12, 2010, when I counted 517. Here is my hour to hour count between 9AM and 7PM: 1st hour-60, 2nd hour-120, 3rd hour-106, 4th hour-92, 5th hour-80, 6th hour-56, 7th hour-40, 8th hour-28, 9th hour-14, and 10th hour-10. Total= 606.

Update September 21:
The week started out with rain and ended in rain. From September 15 to September 21, I observed 729 monarchs on migration as compared to 40 last year for same time period. From August 18 to September 21, I counted 764 as compared to 310 last year for same time period. By the way, I observed just 44 for the entire season in 2012!

Harrisville, MI

Latitude: 44.6 Longitude: -83.4

Observed by: Frank
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