2009 Goal : Tag 500

[summerluver]

Wow...the green flu! I've never had one do that yet. If it did happen I would have probably chalked it up to some pesticide tainted milkwee. I'll bet when Mona reads this she might have some insight. I hope this "pricker" isn't an air tube for some wasps, but it does make sense. Will have to let you know. He's currently in the house. Do these wasps come out as little baby wasps? Maybe I should move him outside.....what do yoiu think? Good luck with your remaining cats.

[texas butterfly]

Congratulations on your 500!!!!

You have inspired me to set 500 as my goal next year.

I should have raised and released about 100 Monarchs in my rookie season.

I thought for sure that 100 would be an aggressive goal for next year, but think that number will be easily obtainable and 500 would be a good goal for next year.

Again, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

[Wyvern]

Do these wasps come out as little baby wasps? Maybe I should move him outside.....what do yoiu think? Good luck with your remaining cats.

If it is a wasp then it will emerge as an adult.

[summerluver]

Oh No!!!! Time to learn how to mist the web he's hanging on to and get him moved outside! Thanks for your help.

[Mona Miller]

I'd put the pupa into some type of container. You never know, there might be a butterfly in there. I've had wasp winter over in swallowtail pupae.

[Wyvern]

Latest update. 527 monarchs successfully tagged. I have 23 tags left and still plenty of chrysalis left that I'm waiting on.

[summerluver]

UNBELIEVABLE!!! You're a one man Monarch Machine! I let one female go today at 9:30am when it was 60 and sunny, but it's windy here today, and chilly. The sun soon went in, and I felt guilty for putting her out into the cold, cruel world, instead of keeping her inside for another day. The chrysalis that I thought had the wasp looks like it's o.k., and I'm expecting a new birth tomorrow. Lost another chrysalis over the weekend, however, to that darn fly that must have layed eggs on my caterpillar.

[dandjtaylor]

Congrats from New England! My last cats became Chrysalis yesterday. I released my last tags of the season yesterday at 435. Too bad since my "extras" are still over 140. Well, between you and I, we should have put a pretty good number of potential successes to at least make it to a more survivable winter climate. I'd be happy just knowing some of mine decided to hang in Florida for a couple of months!

435 tagged
567 total so far

[Mona Miller]

The NJ Monarch Monitoring group has had Monarchs go to Mexico, so some of them do make that turn and go along the coast. It is a more difficult journey than shooting down the coast to FL.

[summerluver]

Well, my "wasp infected" chrysalis turned out to be a false alarm, and I had a beautiful baby girl born this afternoon. I only saw about 5 Monarchs in Cape May this past weekend. Where are all of yours?.....I've had the welcome mats out under the butterfly bushes all week waiting for them!

[Wyvern]

Congrats from New England! My last cats became Chrysalis yesterday. I released my last tags of the season yesterday at 435. Too bad since my "extras" are still over 140. Well, between you and I, we should have put a pretty good number of potential successes to at least make it to a more survivable winter climate. I'd be happy just knowing some of mine decided to hang in Florida for a couple of months!

435 tagged
567 total so far

Eastcoast monarchs do go to Mexico - not all hang out in Florida. Last year I tagged 400 monarchs and had 4 of my babies found in Mexico.

I'm down to about 15 tags left. I have one caterpillar left and about 20 chrysalis I'm waiting on. I hate this slow down period. I liked it better when things were moving lickity split a few weeks ago LOL. I did see one wild female hanging out in the garden this morning, but she wasn't letting me anywhere near her to catch and tag. If I had to rely only on wild migrating monarchs to tag, I'd not likely ever tag more than 10 in a season lol... much better to raise my own for tagging.

[dandjtaylor]

I agree completely! I was only able to nab and tag 4 wilds and that was only because my zinnia's are so huge that even the monarchs get swallowed up in their blossoms!

[Mona Miller]

The wild monarchs have a very long journey and there are many predators. They have to act quickly.

I used to wear camo clothing, (plus hat), walk very slowly, with the net behind my back, don't let your shadow fall on them (read "Butterflying" by Michael Pyle--good suggestions for netting). And, when bringing up the net, do it slowly, center it, then swoop fast, and flip.

[summerluver]

Dwayne...I see you're scheduled for a possible frost tonight, (along with some areas all the way down into the Carolina's), that could wipe out all of your beautiful zinnias along with the rest of the nectar sources our babies need. Please keep us posted.

[summerluver]

Wyvern....Oh my....only 1% of yours made it down there! I was reading that in Mexico there are 3 species of birds and a couple of mice that have developed an immunity to their toxins, and love to dine on them. So disheartening. It's a miracle these butterflies have not become extinct with these statistics. All the more reason to try and raise as many as we can.

[Monarch MaMa]

My last butterfly was released on Sunday Sept 27. Unfortunately we've had a cold rainy few days here in SE MI and a frost last night (Sept 30). I doubt if the last of mine made it out of the freezing zones before the cold hit, probably only went 60 miles to OH border, if that. I've learned a lesson tho, don't bring in small cats from warmer locations (i.e. southern areas) up north because the butterflies won't be able to get south before the frosts hit. IF I'd kept those last 3 for 5 days, I could have released them after this frost BUT they would also have lost 60-100 miles of traveling south - its a gambling situation either way.
Everyone I've spoken to has remarked how few monarchs they've seen this year.

[dandjtaylor]

Summer

Fortunately, we live right on the water (Salem Harbor) and usually are a few degrees above the "scheduled temp's" for Salem. We benefit from the water temperature. This is also why I believe that we lag the typical latitiude schedule for migration by about a month. Large numbers are beginning to be passing through my garden. Yesterday, even at 56 degrees and cloudy, there were several large Monarchs on the zinnia's, very active and v ery hard to approach. We were totally blown away with surprise but they were there!

7 more eclosed this morning. I have been keeping a heat lamp on in the shed to assist in the speeding up of their development.

[Wyvern]

Wyvern....Oh my....only 1% of yours made it down there!

From a tagging point of view... for me to have had 1% is a good number when you get right down to it. Several thousand are tagged each year. The tagged monarchs have to first make it to mexico which ain't easy. Then they have the hard task of being spotted amongst millions and millions of untagged monarchs. Then of course they have to be one of the very lucky few hundred that are spotted, collected and returned to MW. MW can't buy up all collected tagged flutters and there are many tagged flutters that do make it down there but are never found by the collectors. I think there was only like 600 or so altogether collected this past winter and not all of those tags were from last year's tagging.. some were old collected tags from previous years that were held on to by the collectors.

[Mona Miller]

I've been told if you get one tagged Monarch showing up in Mexico out of 200 you are lucky.

[summerluver]

Thanks for the weather update. It was cold here today, with temps at 40 this morning and no sun. Forecast is for rain tomorrow, with the sun coming out on Sunday, warming things up. Have 2 butterflies, (boy and girl) anxiously waiting for it, with my last 3 eclosing tomorrow. Talking with all of you is helping me to fight the "blues" I always experience when they're all gone, and my last remnants of summer are officially over.

[Wyvern]

Latest Update:

550 butterflies successfully raised and tagged. I have 12 more in chrysalis' but I am out of tags so they won't get any pretty accessories added when they are released.

292 (53%) tagged were males.
258 (47%) tagged were females.

Two of those I tagged did not survive. One was found to have been eaten by a spider. The other, apparently had a non-working proboscis and starved.

I estimate I lost about 200 (+/-) through the season. Over half of the deaths were actually eggs that didn't hatch or were infertile. 2nd most common cause of death was sudden black/green death. Less than a dozen were infested with fly parasites. No wasps parasites seen. No fungal infections seen. Had a handful of chrysalis' that died for no apparent reason. I figure I had about 2 dozen deformed adults. Of the deformed - nearly all could be attributed to damage caused by other cats while trying to pupate or emerged fine, but were then knocked to the bottom of the containers by other emerging adults and could not get back up towards the top before their wings began to dry. I did take some tapings of random adults to test for OE, but haven't gotten around to checking them yet under the microscope.

Overall, my death rate was about the same as last year, but this year I had a lot more survivors which I can probably contribute to the high egg dumping going on - more eggs/cats available to collect compared to last year.

One trend I did see was that most deformities were males, while most "dwarf" adults were females. I also had two micro-dwarfs this year - both females.