Date: 04/11/2016

Number: 1

For what it is worth, this spring has been the richest in monarch cats that we have seen in the past 6 years. The monarchs started showing up in early March and we are now overrun with caterpillars. Even our patch of native zizotes in the meadow had eggs on it, something we’ve not seen before. I spread out as much Amdro around those as I felt okay with, but the patch still had a goodly number of ants on it, and I saw no larvae or evidence of leaf damage. However, our tropical and giant milkweed were covered with larvae and they are now busy crawling everywhere to pupate. There is even one that pupated less than 6 inches from a paper wasp nest.

We saw few females, but they may well have come through during the day when we were at work. There have been males around for several weeks. What is curious is that many (not all) looked bright and fresh. However, there were no monarchs around Rockport during the winter. I looked hard at the usual sites and saw none. They must have come from somewhere else but it seems likely that most of them were not from Mexico.

Rockport, TX

Latitude: 28 Longitude: -97.1

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