Date: 08/22/2016

Number: 2

Two monarchs were spiraling up in the air and chasing in the backyard when I came home from work. One left and didn't come back. The other, a male, began doing what looked like brief patrol flights across the garden, landing with a pause on various objects including a dried phlox head, a bare elderberry fruit bract, a dried joe-pye weed flower, a lilac leaf, the empty suet feeder cage, a post. He only went to nectar at a flower twice and then briefly. His pauses were like a rest. Was he recently eclosed and exploring the garden? My weekly checks of the common milkweed plants revealed only four preflight stage monarchs all summer. The two adult monarchs today make the total sightings for the summer at four.

Goshen, IN

Latitude: 41.6 Longitude: -85.8

Observed by: Julia
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