Date: 09/13/2019

Number: 500

Hundreds of Monarch Butterflies were Roosting in the trees on the east side of the Wisconsin State Capitol around noon.

Editor's note: contacted observer for more details on this sighting

he roost formed Friday, September 13th--I walk to where I work near the capitol and saw a few here and there as I arrived, but then heard about it in a Facebook group and went around noon and there were HUNDREDS. They were on the east side of the capitol.

This was definitely an extremely rough guess, but considering how many clusters were in so many trees, I went between 300-1k sort of. When I posted about it in local Monarch facebook groups, people saw what they thought was 1,000 later that evening and overnight, they were there through the next morning as people saw them during the farmer's market which runs 6am-2pm. After that I believed numbers waned.

As for nectar sources, there's a nearby bike path .5-1 mile away with some but nothing in the capitol lawn besides impatiens and touristy plant arrangements--they had a few tuberosa plants in July but those have been pulled by now.

Overnight temperatures, Low 60's, high 50's

Wind direction? I don't recall other than it was a VERY windy day and it was on the east side of the capitol. I've never seen them here before.

Madison, WI

Latitude: 43.1 Longitude: -89.4

Observed by: Emily
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