Date: 09/13/2021

Number: 500

100s if not 1000s of monarchs come through here at about this time each year. Although this year seems a bit later than normal. My phone pictures really don't do it justice.

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

The butterflies started arriving around September 10th, at least that's about when we started to notice them. We live in the country, right across the road from property owned by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. There are approximately 25 acres of sunflowers that are in bloom during the time of the Monarch's arrival. The sunflowers bloom for about 3 weeks every year...the Game and Parks Commission seeded these sunflowers many years ago. They aren't the normal sunflowers we see growing in the road ditches.

The overnight temperatures have roughly been in the low 60s with a few nights getting into the 50s. This morning is 49.

We have several tree lines around our farmyard which is where the monarchs seem to congregate. If there's a south wind we'll usually find them on the north side of the trees during the day. They seem to prefer our Scotch Pines and cedars. If it's calm during the day we usually don't see them until the evening when they're returning from the sunflower field to roost on the trees.

I counted about 25 butterflies on one section of a branch and just estimated from there. I would guess there were upwards of a 1000 last week. There are still a few butterflies lingering around but the peak appeared to be last week.

Fairfield, NE

Latitude: 40.4 Longitude: -98.1

Observed by: Thomas
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