Date: 09/09/2021

Number: 40

Cool evening, breezy. Only around 40 monarchs this evening. They were in the pines, oak trees, and American elm. About 8-10 feet up. All looked good. Many less tonight compared to the last 7 evenings.

[Additional information contributed by observer, added by Journey North, 09/10/21]:

We first started seeing more Monarchs at the end of August. We didn’t see them roosting until Sept. 1st. That first night they were mostly in one of Cedar trees and also our American Elm. There were at the least 100. We counted in groups of five, and when we got to around 90, because the majority was between the two trees, some were flying and some were in a few of the trees in the back of the house. So we ended up at around 100. They kept increasing in numbers until last night when we didn’t see nearly as many.

On the 8th of Sept we counted in groups of 10. My husband was there with me and it was amazing to see. There were more coming in to land and roost as we were trying to count and not get eaten alive by mosquitoes. They were in our American Elm, our Buckeye tree, the two Oak Trees and ours and our neighbors’ Norway spruces. The branches of the trees were actually bowing from all the monarchs. The three spruces that are next to each other had the most on them. We tried to count by twenties since there were so many and still more flying in. We decided on 450, because the there were at least that many just on the spruces and oak trees which are next to the spruces. The other trees had less, but at least 15-20 in each group. They chose the northeast side of the trees because the wind was coming out of the south southwest.

Last night I only counted around 40. It’s possible they were in our other neighbors trees. I did see at last 50 flying around today, but I was only by our buckeye tree out back because I was busy. Unfortunately we aren’t going to be back home until Sunday. I’m hoping we don’t miss the big take off, but we’ll see.

We live about 8 miles from Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, which is nestled on the shores of Lake Erie, and they have been restoring many of our wetlands and natural fields to the area out here in Ottawa county. I have flowers and the farm field behind us is an alfalfa field that the farmer cuts a few times a year. It is flowering again and there are monarchs and lots of little yellow butterflies in each day.

Oak Harbor, OH

Latitude: 41.5 Longitude: -83.2

Observed by: Sherri
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