Date: 04/14/2022

Number: 20

At 10:30am it was 67 degrees F, sunny (some high wispy clouds), wind 9mph from the E, with 43% humidity. I observed 12 individual monarchs at that time. It was a very peaceful morning. Some of the monarchs were sunbathing in the grass, on tree leaves, or sitting on milkweed plants. There was nectaring from wildflowers and egg-laying by females. I saw a male chase a female with the usual aerial pursuit. She dived into deep grass and he was left guessing where she was. He circled around the area for about 20 seconds, but did not persist.

Later, at 1:30pm it was 73 degrees F, sunny, wind 8mph from the E, with 33% humidity. I observed 20+ individual monarchs and continued to see them flying, nectaring, sunbathing, and egg-laying. One of the females I had just started to follow as she looked for milkweed was chased by a male. After a short aerial pursuit, she evaded him by flying into the foliage of a small tree. I saw that she landed on a leaf, but he did not see that and flew on.

The females are very selective with the milkweed. They now have a good supply to choose from, but do have to check to see if there are already eggs and/or larvae. They have other selection criteria as well, but that is mostly a mystery to me.

The monarchs that I observe have a variety of wing conditions. Some have just a few nibbles from the edges, while others have mostly tattery wing edges. Some are fairly bright-winged, while others are quite faded. Whatever shape they are in, they go about quite well, flying, air-tussling, being bothered by bees and other butterflies, floating & sailing about quite skillfully.

This is one of the males seen today as he rested & sunbathed on a large milkweed ~ a very peaceful perch.

Dobbin, TX

Latitude: 30.4 Longitude: -95.8

Observed by: Kathy
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