Date: 09/12/2020

Number: 200

The rain has passed through our part of the state and surprisingly I've seen large numbers roosting in our oaks and walnut trees. I haven't seen them roost in our trees for several years. There were some smaller roosts last night but tonight has been magical to watch them fly overhead and land in the branches.

First saw roosts in our trees on Friday night. Saturday night there were more clusters.

200 is an estimate. I tried to count one cluster and got to around 30 but there were more. Then I looked at and compared all the other clusters and came up with an estimate of 200.

I have lots of potted flowering plants and several beds of perennial flowering plants but not much has been blooming lately other than some geraniums and hostas. There are several areas outside of town that have lots of native plants including a 5,000 acre conservancy with many reconstructed prairies. I’ve been seeing a lot of monarchs lately, just hadn’t seen the overnight roosts until last weekend.

Overnight temperature for both nights was probably in the 50s. We’d had about 5 days of unusually cool weather with rain and it was finally starting to clear up on Friday night.
Wind was minimal. Definitely protected area in my backyard.

My photos didn’t turn out so well. It was dusk and the sun was not highlighting the lower branches.

Coon Rapids, IA

Latitude: 41.9 Longitude: -94.7

Observed by: Laura
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