Monarch Watch Forums

by **califspaw** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:47 pm

My first Monarch sighting was on Sept. 1, then on Sept. 4 and my last sighting was today Sept. 12. I found 23 eggs which I kept on eye on and have since brought inside as soon as they hatched. I currently have 17 caterpillars, 3 I gave away to a teacher with a live plant, and 3 to my neighbor with a live plant as well.

by **Mona Miller** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:17 pm

I have two recommendations:

1. Join and post this to the Western Monarch list serve:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/western_monarchs/

2. Post this to Journey North's Sightings list.
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/
Monarch Migration
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/Gallery.html
Postings web page.

All this data is important to understanding Monarch breeding and migration.

by **califspaw** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:58 pm

I will definetly try the recommendations you suggested, I have taken lots of pics. I had to go get some fresh clippings yesterday night as my cats appetites seem to be increasing. I am not sure but one seem to be pecking at another, I guess because they were too close.

by **Mona Miller** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 3:14 pm

In the fourth and fifth instar they eat day and night. They will peck at each other and sometimes bit each other. In a large 13 cup glad container. I keep no more than 6 late instar caterpillars. Way too much poop (frass) if I keep more.

by **califspaw** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 3:08 am

Yes, when I went to work this afternoon they had plenty of leaves, when I returned at 10pm my husband had gone outside already and clipped three more large branches of milkweed as they had finished what I left. I will have to seperate them as you have done, he said they were pecking each other when he got home. I am sweeping up lots of fras.

by **Mona Miller** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:18 am

What part of California are you in? I'd love to let the Western Monarch list serve know how much success you are having?

by **califspaw** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:57 pm

Sorry took long with reply, my cats have been keeping me busy at night when I usually log in. I am in Covina, CA. Last 2 days I have been going through milkweed like crazy! I literally have gone out at 2am to cut milkweed and replenish my cats supply. Six look like they are ready for chrysalis, the feeding has slowed done drastically compared to the past 3 days. Whew I was afraid I was going to run out of milkweed. I did spot 3 more cats on my milkweed. I have plenty of pictures just now very savvy on how to post. I did email some to the learner web you mentioned, I just submitted my report so hopefully they will add the pics to that.

by **Mona Miller** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:02 am

I'll let the scientists at the Monarch Alert program know. Thanks. Last instar caterpillars eat day and night.

I put milkweed in a bag in the crisper and take it out when needed. Some species of milkweed leaves last several days.

by **califspaw** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 3:08 pm

As of 9:30 am I had one green chrysalis. Right now I have 9 cats hanging from their silk buttons and the other 4 have stopped eating and are hanging out on top of a netting contraption I have. (Purchased at Ikea years ago to hold toys, it hangs from a hook) I am sure they r going to chrysalis as they r ignoring the leaves. The other 3 were a little smaller and I put back on my milkweed as the big ones kept eating all the leaves. We have been having beautiful weather out here.

by **califspaw** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 1:47 pm

Sunday morning I noticed a wasp flying around my milkweed. I quickly swatted and killed it. It was too late I found the remains of one of my smaller cats, ughh. I collected the other two and brought them in. I went across the street to warn my neighbor. She had put her live plant outside, the milkweed aggravated her allergies. One of her little cats was gone too. She let me take the two back inside with mines. I also found another small cat so I brought it in, another wasp was circling. Sunday morning I had 16 (1 is my neighbors) that were in the J position, and three little cats. I still feel awful that the wasp got the other two though. This morning (Monday) I gave my neighbor back her cat (it's on branch in J), so her son could watch it turn into chrysalis. I have 13 in chrysalis and 2 in J position. I still have my 3 smaller cats.

by **Mona Miller** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:24 pm

http://bugguide.net/node/view/246128
European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula)
Did your wasp look like this?

by **califspaw** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:23 pm

I believe it looked more brown with yellow. I do not think it was full size. I have seen the one you showed, but mostly the ones I see are a reddish brown color with the yellow. One of my cats which was in the J position died. It just fell down from where it was hanging and oozed some liquid brown stuff. It was in a compartment by itself, I did clean the netting with alcohol. My chrysalis's are hanging in a six compartment netting contraption. The ooze did not hit any of the other chrysalis. But I did clean the areas with alcohol where it dripped on. I dont know if that was due to disease, or if I accidently squeezed the cat when it first attached to the top compartment. I picked up my netting from the top not realizing it had attached itself to the very top inside cranny of it. Although this cat was the last of my big group to go into J, from the very beginning one of its antennas was stubby.

by **Mona Miller** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 4:11 pm

http://bugguide.net/node/view/17446
Brown Paper Wasp. These are in CA, too.

It may just have some type of disease. Do you rinse the area with water after using alcohol?

by **califspaw** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:22 pm

No I did not rinse with soap and water after the alcohol. The other cats are still in their chrysalis. That was the only one that died on me. I have 16 chrysalis right now. 3 are spaced like 6 days from the first. I have 2 other cats that just went into J today. 1 cat that is like 1/2 inch right now, and 2 tiny ones I found on Weds. I spotted another Monarch on Weds. laying eggs on my milkweeds.

by **Mona Miller** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:17 pm

I would not use alcohol without at least rinsing with water. That is pretty strong stuff.

by **califspaw** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 2:12 pm

Yeah, after you mentioned it I thought about it, especially since I have been using a diluted water & alcohol mixture outside to get rid of some white flys from my lime tree. But did clean the area affected, no butterflys yet still in chrysalis. As of today I have 18 in crysalis, one about to form into a J, and three cats which are probably 7 days old.

by **Mona Miller** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 2:27 pm

It takes 10-14 days for the pupae to emerge. But, it is temperature dependent. Heat makes the cycle go faster, cold slows down the cycle. Do not put captive (containers) of Monarchs in full sun--that can fly them.

by **califspaw** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:33 pm

Yes, I think I read it here or another monarch site about the sun. I have them in my living room but they are hanging in a corner which doesn't give them direct sun. We have been having fairly hot weather out her, last week was in the 90's, today little cloudy but in the low 80's. I just noticed a tiny cat hatched today from the milkweed clipping I had brought in 2 days ago. I was looking at another website to figure out the instar stages, I believe I have 2 in the 2nd, 1 in 3rd, and the one which looks to be in 5th might be preparing to form a J.

by **Mona Miller** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:54 pm

http://www.monarchwatch.org/biology/cycle1.htm
This Monarch Webpage has instar information.

by **califspaw** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 7:42 pm

My first Monarch emerged today sometime between 2 to 3:30 it started to fly around the netting about 10 minutes ago,(5:30 pm) so I got it to climb onto my butterfly net, as soon as I took it outside it flew into my avocado tree. It is still nice and sunny right now about 80, we had a high of 94 degrees today.

by **Mona Miller** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 7:55 pm

Is this the first time you have taken them in? Isn't it amazing.

by **califspaw** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:51 pm

Yes, this is my first year finding eggs on my milkweed. I had planted the seeds 2 yrs. ago, and only last year in spring did my plant finally grow. Then this autumn was when I spotted my first eggs. As of this morning 10 more have emerged from the chrysalis. Yesterdays was a female, today I counted 5 more females and 5 males. All the monarchs look perfect, except for one of the females, the corner of one of her wings is still crumpled up a bit. My husband was a little disappointed yesterday when I released the first one without him. But I just want to send them on their way to Mexico. Hopefully he will see me release these 10. I still have 7 more chrysalis, and the 4 cats.

by **Mona Miller** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 4:00 pm

I don't know about you, but I get to do all the work raising them and he gets to watch them.

by **califspaw** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:27 pm

Yeah, I am doing all the work. 2 more emerged today. I released 7 today, they were ready to go, kept flying around in their netting. I have 5 left to send, and 5 chrysalis, I have found more cats so I have 6 from instars 4 to 1. My daughters are pretty excited, my oldest said she would help me load some pictures we took.

by **Mona Miller** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:40 pm

A good family project. I think Monarch Alert has tags. You could actually be tagging your Monarchs.

http://monarchalert.calpoly.edu/
The info on tagging is on the left.

by **Paul Cherubini** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 9:35 am

If you tag for Monarch Alert, your recapture results will not likely be made public:
http://monarchalert.calpoly.edu/html/previous_data.html
So the data could be lost forever.

The Southwest Monarch Study has tags too and they make their recapture results public:
http://swmonarchs.org/az-recoveries.php

by **MonarchsintheDesert** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:24 pm

Just a clarification. We did order 1,000 of the blue SW Monarch Study tags from Monarch Alert. The old tags used by SWMS in some instances were falling off tagged monarchs. The agreement was that data would be sent to both Monarch Alert and SWMS and any recoveries would also be reported to both so recoveries could be reported on the SWMS web site and in the Study's data records. We have not yet received the new blue tags so many are continuing to be tagged with the older SWMS tags.

by **Mona Miller** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 8:32 am

Paul Cherubini wrote: "If you tag for Monarch Alert, your recapture results will not likely be made public:
http://monarchalert.calpoly.edu/html/previous_data.html
So the data could be lost forever. The Southwest Monarch Study has tags too and they make their recapture results public: http://swmonarchs.org/az-recoveries.php"

I contacted the Monarch Alert group. Every tag number that is found, the tagger will receive a call to let them know the details. All other information will be posted at a later time on the website (no data has been lost), which is under construction. When a tagged butterfly goes a significant distance, that information is posted on the Western list serv.

by **Paul Cherubini** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:02 am

Will the Monarch Alert program make the raw tag recapture data available to the public like the San Diego based Monarch Program did at the bottom of this webpage
http://www.monarchprogram.org/tagging.htm (e.g. place of tagging, date of tagging, place of recovery, date of recovery) ? And like this Southwest Monarch Study does http://swmonarchs.org/az-recoveries.php ?

Or will the Monarch Alert program publish their tag recapture results in the form of abbreviated, low resolution graphs like this one about last year's overwintering colony census numbers: http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87 ... orever.jpg If the raw data is never made public it is essentially lost forever to my mind.

by **califspaw** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 1:07 pm

Well it's been a while, when I last posted late Sept. I mentioned I had found about 6 cats. well I ended up finding 16. My milkweed plant was looking pretty despondant, as I kept cutting off of it to feed them. So around the 14th of October I put all 16 out on my live plant which I have growing out of a whiskey barrel. Then I got a veil material and covered the whole thing to keep out predators. Well it worked and between the 16-19th all had turned into a chrysallis. I guess due to the cold nights the first 3 didn't emerge until Oct. 31st., then 3 more on Nov. 1st, and I had 5 more emerge today. So just five more to go.

by **califspaw** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:11 pm

I could not figure out how to post my pictures on here directly. I believe the link below will take you to some I just added to photo bucket which pertain to the above postings, Enjoy!

http://s1052.photobucket.com/albums/s45 ... 2QQtppZZ16

by **Mona Miller** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:18 pm

You can't post pictures on the sightings, but you can on the other topics. What you do is click the img and place the url in the middle of it.

by **Mona Miller** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:22 pm

[quote="califspaw"]I could not figure out how to post my pictures on here directly. I believe the link below will take you to some I just added to photo bucket which pertain to the above postings, Enjoy!
http://s1052.photobucket.com/albums/s45 ... 2QQtppZZ16[/quote]

I did really enjoy your photos and can't wait until our season starts again. I really miss them.

by **califspaw** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 5:14 pm

Yes, me too! It was a lot of work but My family has enjoyed it. My milkweed in the whiskey barrel has grown back after the last cats. Devoured all the leaves. I planted more seeds this year as well.

by **califspaw** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:54 pm

Spotted my first Monarch on Easter afternoon, was gliding pretty low. It was pretty big, what a way to celebrate Easter!

by **califspaw** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:05 pm

Spotted a monarch last Saturday, June 9, gliding around my milkweeds. I went out today and found 5 cats! I wasn't looking to closely there might be more.

by **califspaw** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:55 pm

Spotted a monarch about noon today she has been gliding around my milkweed in the front, and laying eggs. I went out to check my hunch and sure enough I found one right where U saw her stop for a few seconds. I wasn't sure at first but when I noticed she wasn't only stopping on the flowers I knew for sure.

by **Mona Miller** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:59 pm

Congratulations!

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