Date: 09/16/2017

Number: 4

My final 5 emerged and one had oe. Released the 4 healthy ones who were wonderful to watch soaring away for the final time this season. This season was extremely disappointing. Although I released over 100 healthy butterflies, I could have had hundreds more. O. E. Was a huge problem as were tachinid fly eggs. I looked online again and realized that some believe the flys can lay their eggs on monarch eggs. I can attest to this as the number of infected caterpillars far outnumbered the number of hatched caterpillars I brought in to rear. Then there was the poisoning which took the worst toll. My nursery, high end who swears no pesticides are used on their milkweed got a bad batch. I bought 9 beautiful plants mid summer and I lost so many cats I lost count. As soon as I took them off the new leaves and put them strictly on the old plants, the problems almost completely stopped. And yes I let the nursery know. I saved some by rinsing them off. I had to get rid of tons of eggs too because I wouldn't have enough to feed them by the end. As it was, my milkweed was 99 percent gone by the time the last cat pupated. Although this was a lot of work, I will do this again next year. Need to figure some things out though. Have a great winter everyone.

Evanston, IL

Latitude: 42 Longitude: -87.7

Observed by: Pam
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