Date: 10/30/2014

Number: 600

Christine T. emailed me at 8:50 AM that she spotted lots of monarchs flying over Brackenridge Park, very high! She then sent a message at 9:15 from the S.A. Botanical Gardens seeing monarchs there and casually counted over 200 flying. I looked up from our yard and saw what I first thought was a kettle of hawks, then with my binoculars, realized it was about 15 monarchs circling. Cloud cover was 100 %, which was interesting. I then noticed more, most very high and visible only as specks unless you used binoculars. Some were sailing lower, but most were high up, heading south/southwest. I timed it and counted about 50 or a little more every 10 minutes. I repeated that periodically, I watched a fairly steady stream off and on for 2 hours. That comes to about 300 per hour which is somewhat conservative. After 11:30 or 12, the sun came out and I could still see some sailing high and a few lower, with a few stopping to nectar on my white mist. I banded about 5 of them. I called several people encouraging them to look up! Roy & Jessica, about 1.5 miles southwest of me were seeing the same. Craig H. at Guadalupe Rive State Park documented about 500 per hour - I'm sure he'll report on JN or Kip K. will for him.

San Antonio, TX

Latitude: 29.5 Longitude: -98.5

Observed by: Patty
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