Date: 03/12/2018

Number: 14

Today I went out looking for milkweed, and found not only nicely growing young milkweed, but also monarch eggs! I ended up looking at 39 milkweed plants (Asclepias viridis) over about a 6 acre zone. I found a corridor from our bottomland to the top where the 14 eggs had been laid. They were in the crowns (buds) of some of the plants, while in the taller variety they were often on the stems or leaves. Most individual plants had 1 egg, while a few had 2 eggs. All of the milkweed has just emerged, so it is in the very beginning stages of growth.

As I was trying to photograph some of the eggs, the monarch that laid the eggs (or at least some of them I believe) appeared! She was a lovely butterfly with faded wings and she was spending her time basking in the sun and nectaring on wildflowers, with a particular liking for wild blackberry blossoms (which also have just begun blooming). I will add her report to Monarch Adult Sighted.

Montgomery, TX

Latitude: 30.4 Longitude: -95.8

Observed by: Kathy
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