It's monarch season!

I tagged them last year, but none appear to have been found. I was a bit late ordering them.

My 2019 tags arrived this week. Here is last year's tag.

There was a press conference in Mexico City last winter. The butterfly sanctuary numbers came in. They estimate their populations by how much of the forest is covered by butterflies. They had the highest recorded since 2006: 14.9 acres of forest was covered in butterflies, a record high and an increase of 144%!

There has been both good and bad news about North American Monarchs. Monarchs have two separate populations, one in the west, and ours in the east. Our eastern ones have had a population increase. The ones in the west, wintering in California, are at risk.


They lay about 300 eggs.  We await the next 3 generations over the summer months, May to September, when the final supergeneration flies back south to live over our winter season.

Our first monarch appeared, Sunday, June 9th. I've been peeking at the milkweed, they only lay eggs on milkweed, although they eat the nectar of many plants, and found nothing.

First one! 10:45 a.m. July 24th

6:49 p.m., July 24th, the first one had moved,
and I found another egg!

This is where they are laying their precious eggs, right beside the front step.


Another egg.


I've been tracking their progress up the continent through Journey North: Monarch Watch. They travel 5000 km, above ground about a 1km, to conserve energy. Early May, the first generation landed in places like Texas, where they laid eggs for a new generation.

May, 2019

Only 1% survive from egg => butterfly.

First ones migrate to Texas, laying eggs on milkweed.

500,000 million eggs!

May 24

May 30

This is a fascinating video: 

CBC The Nature of Things - The Great Butterfly Hunt

The remarkable and most incredible Monarch migration, and the determined Canadian scientist, Fred Urquhart, who spent 40 years trying to discover exactly where they mysteriously disappear to for winter.

These are my notes from the video, although, the video is amazing, if you have the time or inclination. They carefully recreated his adventure, with historically accurate details. After the video, they showed how difficult it was to film in Mexico, and how much care they took to avoid harming them.

It was a Canadian, Dr. Fred Urquhart ,who tried to track down this mystery for 40 years, as a child to 2001 when the mystery was solved. The butterflies can be victims of habitat loss; there were fires in the habitat one year; pesticides, drought as they were travelling, as they only lay eggs on milkweed plants.

In the 1950s new sticky labels to tag groceries were the answer. He and his wife, Nora, tagged them. Now, tagging is a huge production. The video recreates his huge wall map, where they pinned monarch locations.

By 1967 they were tagging across N.A. It was in 1973 the breakthrough, from Ken Bruger working in Mexico. Ken and Catalina on the Aguado Trail found large populations of Monarchs in Mexico.

On Jan. 9, 1976, the Urquharts went to mexico. It's an amazing moment in the video.

Population News From Mexico: Highest Since 2006 (<= read more)