Date: 10/24/2014

Number: 1

One female monarch seen apparently struggling to find nectar, sighted at 4:30 pm. She repeatedly took off for short flights from fallen brightly colored leaf to leaf heading south. Unfortunately, she missed the flowers that I still had blooming...she was in between flower beds (well to her east and west) and distracted by the brighter leaves on the lawn. I hope that she made it to a neighbor's zinnias to the south. I briefly tried to gently "herd" her toward my flowers by walking toward her from the side but she preferred flying south in short hops rather than divert east or west. I did not want to exhaust her further so I gave up quickly. She was brightly colored and whole. I hope she makes it.

Weather--low of 54 F and high of 71 F, moderate winds this morning around 15 mph from northwest that gradually calmed to about 7 mph at the time of the sighting to even less at dusk, sunny or mostly sunny all day (mare's tails growing in the afternoon). The preceding day (10/23) I had very windy conditions--often gusts around 30 mph and 10/22 was rainy all day from a nor'easter that formed off the coast that then became very windy at dusk and overnight.

king george, VA

Latitude: 38.3 Longitude: -77.1

Observed by: jessica
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