Date: 08/28/2015

Number: 52

Chasing Monarchs - Day 2 in Northumberland County

The night was cool and the dew was very heavy this morning, so spent about 4 hours this afternoon capturing monarchs for tagging. Double the number seen yesterday. Was able to capture 52 newly hatched, pristine monarchs. And it was easy to see across these large fields that the monarchs were clearly heading in a westerly direction, but stopped along the way west to consume nectar from clover and alfalfa.

Besides three eggs and a few very small caterpillars, went "caterpillar picking" again, and collected another 50 large caterpillars.

Looked in the net after capturing one monarch and saw that I had also somehow picked up one large caterpillar!

I receive a report today from the Biodiversity Specialist at Presqu'ile Provincial Park concerning monarchs on High Bluff Island, off limits to everyone except a few researchers and many nesting birds (the two islands are one of the largest colonial bird nesting sites on the Great Lakes). I was told that almost every milkweed plant he saw had a large caterpillar on it, sometimes two, and when asked about how many caterpillars he saw, he reported that it was probably "hundreds".

Northumberland County, ON

Latitude: 44 Longitude: -77.9

Observed by: Donald A.
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