West coast monarch overwintering sites?

[dandjtaylor]

I will be traveling to San Diego this week on business. Are there any overwintering sites within driving distance to San Diego?

[Mona Miller]

http://www.xerces.org/where-to-see-mona ... alifornia/

[runnr]

This may have got to you late, but some older informations suggests the UCSD campus, and a tad further north to Carlsbad (Hosp Grove). The Presidio in San Diego is also mentioned. However recent publications make mention of San Clemente State beach, about 40 miles(?). See http://www.kcet.org/socal/socal_wandere ... coast.html
Good luck.

[Paul Cherubini]

I will be traveling to San Diego this week on business. Are there any overwintering sites within driving distance to San Diego?

There used to be (1990's), but the western monarch population has dropped so much in the 2000's that not hardly any clusters form south of Los Angeles anymore and when they do it is mainly between Nov. 5 - 25. One place you could check that is easy to get to from the San Diego airport is Presidio Hill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_Park You drive into the park, up the hill and at/near the top you should see a rectangular grove of very tall Canary Island Pines. You can keep driving as the road ends up going right underneath these pines. You may see a few monarchs flying around or clinging to those pines. In the 80's and early 90's there were 100's to low 1000's of monarchs clustered there.