Date: 10/09/2014

Number: 250

Oct 9 tagged another 45 monarchs, could have quadrupled that if I wasn't so busy trying to get HD video footage of them for our NC State Parks 100th anniversary video that will be in 2016.

In the lower wake county portions of the lake I saw one every 30 minutes or so.

In the granville/durham county portions near I85 and the nectar superhighway, I saw one about every 2 minutes. Also saw several clusters of 20-30 monarchs especially towards evening. Netting them would scare them all off, so for the big groups I just start picking them by hand one by one, get more that way.

Nectar use has changed over almost completely to Baccharis, which is typcial for this time of year. Male blooms preferred, the "yellow" as opposed to white.

31 of the 45 were males, and most of what I was viewing but not catching were predominately males.

I only bought 200 tags this year thinking I would not have much luck, and now I only have a few left! One of these years I'll have time to hit them really hard and get a 1,000 or more tags.

Falls Lake nectar superhighway (Durham/Granville counties, north central NC)
Oct 2 - 15 tagged, 30 seen
Oct 3 - 2 tagged of 2 seen
Oct 4 - 65 tagged of 250 seen (cold front)
Oct 5 - 47 tagged of 200 seen
Oct 9 - 45 tagged of 250 seen

Courtesy of Carolina Leps

Falls Lake, NC

Latitude: 36 Longitude: -78.7

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