Date: 10/07/2021

Number: 42

Beautiful migration!

[Additional information contributed by observer, added by Journey North, 10/08/21]:

We did our major count of the butterflies when the sun was shining on them directly around noon there was not any wind directional that we could tell and they were strictly nectaring at our flowerbed. They seemed to stick around all day and I was trying to locate them if they were going to roost in the area but was not able to locate any roost. We did see one coupling and did locate several new eggs on our milkweed. But that was very rare. Most butterflies seemed to be only nectaring and we think most were males rather than females. The weather was sunny, morning was 60’s afternoon in high 80’s.

We planted, by scratching in the ground, tropical milkweed seeds in the spring in front of our house that received a great deal of sunlight. Many, many seeds came up and they grew really tall 5 1/2 feet tall. Throughout the year, we saw numerous eggs, caterpillars, and butterflies. However, this week we received a real influx of Monarch butterflies that we have never seen before! We have three somewhat separate patches of tropical milkweed‘s in our front flowerbed and we counted each patch fairly closely. So, I feel very certain, our count was fairly accurate.

Allen, TX

Latitude: 33.1 Longitude: -96.7

Observed by: Judy
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