Date: 08/20/2021

Number: 100

We saw a continuous stream of individual monarch butterflies flying west over the North Channel's islands and waters this morning.

[Report moved from Monarch Adult Sighted to Monarch PEAK Migration by Journey North, 08/26/21]

[Additional information contributed by observer, added by Journey North, 09/01/21]:
I was very excited to see so many monarch butterflies the morning of August 20th. I happened to be out in my kayak off our cruising boat which was at anchor when I noticed the first few around 9:30 am. It surprised me that there seemed to be one after another out over the water so I started to count them. They were all flying in the same westerly direction.

When I arrived back at our boat after counting about 40, I was rather excited about the number of butterflies so I had my husband watch as well. We counted another 10 in a short space of time. Our friends soon starting saying “there’s one” “there’s one.” We were at anchor until around 11:30 and counted around 30 more. I estimated 100 because as we were headed east, we continued to see them fly by our boat on a regular basis. It was likely more than the 100 but I did not count accurately so estimated 100.

The butterflies were all flying over the water – I took a couple of very short videos of them in flight. One actually landed on me while on our boat which I thought was fun as I seemed to be the most excited to see so many at once. Some were flying in a beeline fashion while others seem to flap less and glide more. The conditions were very calm when I saw the majority of the butterflies.

I am attaching an aerial photo taken from my husband’s drone the evening of August 19th to see the area where we spotted the majority of the butterflies. The view in this photo is looking east to Turnbull Island and we were anchored directly underneath the drone. It was a similarly calm morning with very light winds the following morning. The GPS coordinates of Turnbull Island in the North Channel are 46° 09’ 00”N 082° 45’ 26”W

The North Shore, ON

Latitude: 46.1 Longitude: -82.8

Observed by: Martha
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