Date: 08/31/2020

Number: 75

Hard to count as my husband surprised them with his lawn mower and they circled all around us in a cloud. That is the best I could do at estimating the number is somewhere between 75 and 100. They were roosting along our creek in the box elders and mulberry trees. Most left as the day warmed up but there are still about 25 there again this evening (same day).

We noticed them first on the morning of September 1st but they had clearly been there the night before roosting in the trees. My husband found them around 9am.

Number: my husband felt there were in the hundreds but he was so astonishrd that was maybe an overestimate. Unfortunately he scared them with his lawnmower and many flew higher up in the trees. He came and got me right away and when we went back, many were swirling around. I counted 50 still roosting quietly on the branches that were approximately eye level and estimated somewhere between 25 and 50 more were flying around us. I could see more in a clump up high roosting but no way of knowing how many.

Nectar sources: Amazingly enough, we are an official Monarch Waystation so we have been working on increasing our nectar plants as well as host plants. Never in a million years did we expect this happy result in our waystation! That being said, my interest in monarchs stems from an incident about 20 years ago when suddenly I was surrounded by monarchs on our front lawn. And we have always had many passing through at this time of year so I’m wondering now if its possible they have roosted in our trees before and we never knew it.

We have one acre of fruit trees but beyond that on the other acre, apart from the foot print of our house, we are gradually working our way into native pollinator gardens. In bloom right now, we have a good supply of goldenrod, purple coneflowers, native phlox, rudbeckia, asters are just coming on and Liatris is just finishing. We also have loads of non natives still that we are gradually replacing. In bloom right now are many rose of sharon, one budleia, hydrangeas and lots of scarlet runner beans in bloom.

Weather: wind was quite strong and seemed to be coming more from the south than usual. I’m not sure of the temp but it was a warm wind. The monarchs were totally sheltered as they were in a stand of trees in the south east corner of our property that grow on either side of our creek.

By 11 am on the 1st most of the butterflies had left but then the weather began to change. It got cooler and the wind was now coming from the north west.

Lincoln, ON

Latitude: 43.2 Longitude: -79.5

Observed by: Helen
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