Date: 10/10/2019

Number: 3

Has anybody ever seen a Monarch drunk on nectar?? I witnessed it with a female monarch day before yesterday and then with a male monarch last night. Both had been nectaring heavily all day long fighting off bees and Painted Lady butterflies and these 2 lasted the longest of the other butterflies that came to visit. The pattern was that they stayed from early afternoon on and at about 6:30 p.m. they started looking lethargic and then just sat attached themselves to our buddleia bush with closed wings. It got too dark to check on them further however. The next morning at 10:30 a.m. I noticed they were both there ----one Wednesday am and one today, Thursday am. I was fearful Wednesday am that the female monarch did not survive our cold night of 43 degrees and started talking to it sofly..... it slowly began to stir .... moving its antennae and open its wings to absorb the sunshine. The male monarch acted the same way today after I talked to it. I have a pretty good picture of the female with some dewdrops still scattered on her body which I will share. It was such an amazing experience I won't long forget & just had to share it. I also need to report that I saw one additional Monarch come by in the afternoon which nectared and then soon left. The weather was sunny and cool with temps in the high 60s, but a change is coming quickly come Saturday when we will have rain mixed with snow and temps only in the 40s. I think the butterflies can sense that this colder weather system is coming soon.

Lake, MI

Latitude: 43.9 Longitude: -85

Observed by: Pat
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