Previous Sightings - 2004 to 2008

[Jim]

Monarch sightings for the Middle Atlantic region of the United States (NJ, NY, PA) - 2004 to 2008.

[monofarch]

On Saturday, July 24th, I found two larvae at Mendon Ponds Park in Monroe County. One was approximately 4 days old and the other approximately 10 days old. On Sunday the 25th, I found an additional two larvae (approx. 5 days old) and sighted my first butterfly this year. Upon further investigation, I found 11 eggs. I was not expecting to find anything as this is the early end of monarch appearances in this area.

[monofarch]

Over the weekend (8/31) my two oldest larva went into the chrysalis stage. All 13 or so eggs that I have collected successfully hatched and are eating up a storm.

[monofarch]

As of 8/2, I still have seen only one butterfly. While in the fields of Mendon Ponds on 8/2, I found one egg and one young larva. There were many aphid-like insects and small spiders occupying the tops of young milkweed plants leading me to think that some larva and eggs have been gobbled up.

[ajkmt]

Out of about a 3 acre area with about 40-50 milkweed we only found 3 eggs, no cats or butterflies. We found the eggs on 7/22, they should soon make their cyrisalis. Can't Wait.
JO

[monofarch]

I may be getting a bit impatient, but I am enjoying the hunt. The milkweed fields around here are endless with several I know of having thousands of plants per acre. As I study the monarch more and more, I discover many obstacles that they face to survive. Locally I am finding many predatory insects perched in the tender tops of young milkweed plants waiting for an egg to be layed or larva to hatch. Yesterday I read in our local paper about the increased invasion of swallow-wort, a vine-like member of the milkweed family. Monarch butterflies will lay eggs on the plant, but the larvae do not survive because of the toxicity. Last night I was out and found two eggs on milkweed in about an hour but no other sign of the butterflies. Again, I have to keep reminding myself that it's early and I'm glad to see their arrival beginning. I struggle between the naturalist side of me leaving the environment untouched and the enthusiast side wanting to bring specimens home to rear them. I'm glad I do gather them as yesterday I found the horse trail where I find many eggs was mown down. I feel that I saved some from imminent doom.

[salongi]

Last summer I was able to observe Monarchs all summer from the time they were laying eggs on the milkweed in early summer until late in the fall when they seemed to hangout in fields of golden rod in meadows near and on the beach. I also saw a few visit mu butterfly bush. I could also observe them landing on rocks on the beach on the North Shore here on Long Island, doing what I am not exactly sure (sipping mineral water off them, maybe?).

I have seen nary a one this year. Anybody know what may be up with them?

[monofarch]

As our family has been on the South Beach diet for the past week, eggs have been on the menu every morning and the thought of more is not too appetizing. But, monarch eggs are OK by me. Not for breakfast of course! (They're not very filling.) Anyways, yesterday I went out to my favorite fields and saw only my second butterfly of this year. It was a female and I had the blessing of following her around as she layed eggs until I lost her. I did collect a total of 13 eggs however and am hoping for the best in rearing them. They are a lot of work as the plants they are on quickly wilt after being picked. I've tried digging them up with plenty of surrounding soil, but with no luck. So, I am experimenting with a new tactic. I carefully cut the leaf in a small square around the egg and white glue it to a piece of paper. It's tricky to keep after them as they hatch. After their first meal of their eggshell, I then must get them onto a fresh plant so they can continue to eat as there is nothing left of their original leaf. It's worked so far. Am I obsessed with these creatures or what?

[monofarch]

It wasn't until I spent hours doing field research that I got better acquainted with signs of monarch larva activity. For a while, I would see milkweed plants devoured and wonder how I kept missing the Monarchs. I now can better recognize the difference between monarch eating habits and that of other insects that feed on the milkweed. In all, I have witnessed at least four other insect species that feed on the milkweed in Western New York fields including Milkweed Tiger Moth larvae, Red Milkweed Beetles, Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetles and Small Eastern Milkweed Bugs.

With that knowledge, I have taken to the fields once again and have captured several more larvae and another dozen or so eggs. Still in all I have seen only three Monarch butterflies this year except for the two that have hatched in my Monarch nursery.

[ajkmt]

2 of our three emerged Sat the 21st in the am, we missed it. We released them mid afternoon, but only one made it. The third hatched in church Sunday morning. She was released Sunday afternoon. Monday evening I saw a monarch around. No sure if it was one of our or a differant one. We hope our 2 girls make it! We'll be watching for more.
Jo

[monofarch]

Up to this point, I have definitely witnessed substantially less Monarchs in my area in comparison to what I've seen in previous years. In my last two visits to milkweed fields that I have found many Monarchs at in the past in this same time period, I have found no signs of them after extensive searching. And this is usually the time when they are at their peak here. The peak seems to have come several weeks back and was minimal.

I have collected and reared about 30 - 35 with half emerged and gone and the other half are chrysalises or soon to be. This is roughly 1/3 of what I have been able to observe and collect in past years. I try to be careful not to make any presumptions about the populations, but rather I am just noting my observations. I sigh, however, at what I consider to be my loss as I take joy in seeing them flourish.

[monofarch]

After my last entry earlier today, I decided to take advantage of the sunny day and venture back out to my usual Monarch fields with no expectations. This time, with little hope, I took along a Moose Tracks sundae from the Big Moo. (I thought at least I could enjoy a treat while rummaging the milkweeds.) But, my treat really came when I ended up spotting what was probably a newly emerged female. It got even better when I also found three cats. One in its 3rd instar stage and the others in their 5th instar. I searched diligently for eggs with no sign at all. I'm not giving up yet.

[whitebeard]

Larvae on milkweed in Schooleys Mountain Park, Long Valley, NJ. 11:00 am on September 12...

[achase]

I am a teacher in upstate NY-about 30 miles from VT and Quebec borders. Every year, I gather about a half dozen caterpillars in late August-early September for a life cycle unit in my classroom. Not only am I unable to find any caterpillars this year, but I'm not seeing any Monarchs. I may have spotted one a week ago, but that's it. I have searched hundreds of milkweed plants-in areas I normally can easily find caterpillars-and have had no luck. Several colleagues have looked in other areas with no success. This will be the first time in 12 years that I have not found any caterpillars. Usually we are expecting our first butterflies to emerge by now. Does anyone have any info about this? Is it possible that there still might be Monarchs? Although, the milkweeds are already starting to yellow, and we could have a frost within a week or two.

[ajkmt]

We saw 2 Monarchs flutter by our yard today.

[Keith Petrosky]

I live on Long Island.
West Babylon, NY to be exact. A field by me has lots of purple milkweed, so usually from august to october there are monarch butterflies eating, mating, and laying eggs. This year I spotted some larvae eating milkweed, it was so exciting! But there are very few monarchs this year, I have only seen 3. Last year they were all over, I wonder what happened to them all?

[Pat]

Largest milkweeds are about 18" high now and that's usually when the first monarchs come through leaving eggs -- we're 40 minutes north of Philadelphia, but so far (2nd week of May), we've seen mourning cloaks, cabbages and tiger swallowtails, and no monarchs at all.
Pat

[ajkmt]

Northern Somerset co. We have seen many monarch butterflies over the last few days. 3 yesterday. We also collected 38 eggs yesterday from 2 patches of milkweed.
This year there seem to be more than last year. We only found 6 eggs last year.
Jo

[Pat]

Last month we had one male diligently patrolling the milkweeds for several days while they were in full bloom, but he apparently found no females, and he moved on. 2 weeks ago we finally had 3 females visiting our side yard asclepias, but one of them harassed the other two mercilessly (as well as bothering a couple of tiger swallowtails that were just there for the buddleia) and they eventually spread out into the front and back yards until they each had a bit of a patch to themselves. Over the course of about 10 days we collected up the eggs, which were no more than 1 or 2 to a plant of any type, and now have a total of 54 little ones of varying ages - 1st or 2nd instar - and 6 eggs. LOL searching the yard for a few eggs a day is pretty tough in this heat, but we did try leaving half the eggs in place one year and only collecting half to raise, and it seemed that most of the eggs were eaten by some kind of pests ~ we only found a tiny dot of sticky left to show where the eggs had been attached, and ultimately we couldn't find any caterpillars for the eggs we left in place.

The few munched spots we've found on our incarnatas seem mostly to be caused by those obnoxious red milkweed beetles.

[John Beaulieu]

Pat

Yes, after only one year of seriously watching these things, I have seen that the survival rate of eggs and caterpillars left on the milkweeds in our garden is slim to none. There are lots of predators lurking out there. At first I felt guilty removing them from the wild, but with a survival rate of 100% (so far) when we bring them in to raise to butterfly stage, this must make a difference in the overall monarch numbers. So far the number of eggs, caterpillars, and butterflies from our garden this year is up to about 50. That's probably 49 more than would have made it on their own!

[Pat]

Hi John, yep, that's the way we feel as well. Tried leaving it to mother nature, but the mortality rate was just horrendous. We've been raising the eggs we find for many years outdoors in large dollar-store plastic boxes with lots of tiny air holes drilled in the tops. Paper towel in the bottom with fresh leaves broken in half so they don't lie flat on the bottom. Simple but successful, easy to keep clean. No more than a dozen to a container, though - otherwise when they're 4th instars or bigger, they can wipe out a whole container of leaves in a single warm night.

At least they're peaceful caterpillars -- we had to separate the spicebush swallowtails, if we left 3 little ones in a container overnight, we got 1 fat one in the morning even if there was plenty of other food.

[Keith Petrosky]

I just saw a monarch being blown right into the side of my garage by the wind, but it's fine. No caterpillars at all on the milkweed by me, i'm sad.

[Pat]

Hang in there, Keith, we saw practically nothing until a couple of weeks ago; still have the 54 cats and some of them are just now hanging themselves. That's almost double what I had last year at this time. They just seem to have showed up for egg-laying since the buddleias started blooming.

My parents got a permit one year from the parks service to tag them as they went down Jones Beach; have you tried anything like that out where you are?
Pat

[farmerwhitesl]

South central PA first adult sighting mid july by aug 10 eggs and larva cover milk weed plants all over the place. This is a major contrast to last year where the adults and larva were missing. Weather conditions this year are hot and dry, last year cold and wet. This sighting is farmed with Bt corn and round-up ready soybeans. I am happy to report that neither seem to be effecting the butterfly population and the larva are eating just fine.

[Pat]

We're up to about 200 here now (8/15). It was a very slow start, we missed the first generation of May-June completely, but still we're going to finish with many more monarchs than last year. Around here it's been hot and very humid.

[ajkmt]

Great year for us, also. Johnstown area, hot and dry. Seeing 3-5 Monarch everyday. Found 2 more just hatched cats yesterday.
If all the cats we have now make it to butterfly, we'll have raised just over 100! Last year we had 6!

As dd's are singing, "We're a Monarch family!"

[Keith Petrosky]

There really coming in now i've seen 5 in 2 days, and one swooped over my head!

[Pat]

That's good news, Keith!

I had 6 emerge today, but a confounded hornet killed one of them. Apparently someone nearby has a white-faced hornet nest they don't know about yet. Grrrrrr.

[Teresa]

Thats one thing i've never seen around here is a wasp after my monarchs. Thank God!

[Pat]

They're horrible. The hornets decapitate the butterflies while they're feeding and then leave the bodies. They don't even eat the butterflies afterwards, they just kill them and drop them. And they're very aggressive.

[Teresa]

I wonder why they do that if it isn't for food. hmmmm

I brought one to work with me today and she came out here. She flew around our office for awhile and I just tagged her and took her out to the flower beds and let her go. I hope she'll be ok, it's pretty windy out.

[paypebs]

I live in Stoystown, PA, Somerset County. Today I just found a monarch caterpillar. Kids are very excited to see the transformation. We will be going out tomorrow to see if we can find some more.

[Teresa]

I wonder what the purpose of that is then.

[ajkmt]

Hey, Paypebs, I'm from Soap Hollow. We tagged 22 Monarchs and released about 90 so far this summer.
DD's 9 and 6 had a blast finding eggs and cats this summer. About 2 weeks ago I told them NO MORE! They have been cutting the fields around us with milkweed in, so it's getting scarse around our house. We had picked a bunch of leaves, rinced them off and kept them in an ice cream bucket in the fridg. The leaves kept nice for about two week.
Have fun!
Jo

[Orangeaid]

What a year for Monarch migration. Hi fellow Monarch watchers. Iam new to the board and want to give a brief account of this years Monarch sightings.(I live in Ocean County NJ ) Compared to last year 2005 was just incredible. I started seeing monarchs in June and saw them all the way up to an incredible southward migration in mid October. 1 day a little over a week ago i went up to the beach front and counted for about 20 min and counted on avg 20 monarchs per minute going by it was just an awesome site to witness after last years dismal numbers. I personally tagged 100 monarchs this year and iam hoping for a miracle that one makes it to Mexico and is found and recorded. This was my first year involved in the tagging efforts so i hope i helped them( monarchs ) out with their survival chances. It was alot of work but definately worth the effort maintaining 3 rearing cages for the whole summer. Next year i hope that there will be similar return numbers because i think iam hooked so it would be a little depressing to see a bad return. I will keep my fingers crossed. Just a note iam still seeing sporadic migration 1 or 2 here and there. I hope they make it with the weather getting cold very quick.

[John Beaulieu]

I am not in this region. but had an e-mail from a Monarch Teacher Network member in New Jersey that has already had a female monarch that laid eggs (about 40) on a milkweed that had only sprouted several days previous. She colected the eggs and is scrambling to find some tropical plants to feed the caterpillars.

John[/u]

[Fishslime]

May 31, new at this but after checking the site=male monarch - working near my milkweed patch-also my lawn(white clover) my strawberry patch and potato patch-he looks tired-but very handsome-hope he gets lucky-will keep in touch - Reminder-HELLO IT'S 2006 - WAKE UP!!!!!!N 40 53 003 W 075 12 553

[Fishslime]

Well its almost two weeks and I've yet to see my second monarch - my milkweed is flowering and getting good color - transplanted several plants but that didn't work out too well they are still hanging on though - will try and stop at a local farmer's to try to get him to let the milkweed grow - I'll even weedwack if he wants - saw lightning bugs tonight - had 44° on Sunday and 80° today - go figure - maybe need a growing kit w/larva to get this monarch thing going - I'll do my best!!!!

[Fishslime]

A female had a long lunch of milkweed nectar-didn't notice any boyfriends or egg laying - awaiting my 4Xlarva kits-not many sightings in NJ,NY or PA- the local farmer mowed down lots of milkweed plants-still lots in the swamp-will approach him to transplant the roots to my property-also the road department mowed half of the "up the street" patch of milkweed-I don't care if the neighbors think I'm crazy-these plants will be moved by me too- so I'm nutz-"No child(monarch) left behind" GWB-bet I do better than he does/did!!!!!

[Farfalla]

We had a female lay lots of eggs at school in Paramus N.J. and yesterday I had one in my garden here in North NJ. I found two eggs. Since I also have earwigs, skinks,nesting pheobes and assorted other critters in my garden I think I will raise these babies for release.

[Gwynne]

Hi, I am new to the forum. I hope this is where I post. I live about 25 miles northwest of Philly, in the suburbs. There is a lot of milkweed near where I live, but until this year, it wasnt in walking distance. In past years, I have driven around but havent found any caterpillars. I think I only did that two or three times. This year I noticed a clump of milkweed about 100 yards from my apartment, of course right next to a busy highway! I investigated that night, this was June 16th and found the smallest caterpillar I had ever seen! I had found caterpillars one year when I was small, living down the road in a section that wasnt built up. That was about 30 years ago. I found four caterpillars and three of them hatched. Anyway, I remember the caterpillars being much bigger! My first problem was finding a suitable container. No store seemed to have bug zoos. I did locate a small mesh cage in walmart. The caterpillar really didnt seem to be eating much and I was concerned but continued to clean his cage and give him fresh leaves twice a day. I wondered if I made a mistake bringing him inside. When I went to get more fresh leaves on June 19th, I found a second caterpillar in the same clump of milkweed. I had found about four different clumps of milkweed, but read that butterflies lay lots of eggs in one location. Sure enough, this was the only location I found the caterpillars. On June 20th, I found another caterpillar. The cage was getting a little crowded by then. I called all the stores on June 21st and could fnd nothing suitable and walmart had sold out of the little cages. Finally I went to the pet store and got a hermit crab cage. This had no mesh, just plastic. When I got home, I saw that two of the caterpillars had other plans and one was definately starting a cocoon as I could see the silk button. Another was just stretched out on the mesh at the top of the cage. I got the third caterpillar into the new cage so I had two caterpillars in a smallish cage and one in a large cage! I went back to get leaves and found a fourth caterpillar so I had two for each cage. This caterpillar seemed large, but was really the size of the others. Finding it five days later than the first gave it time to grow! The first guy who had started his cocoon finished it on the morning of June 22nd. His friend was in the J shape. Later that evening, I noticed the two caterpillars in the large cage were also in the J shape. The second caterpillar fininshed his cocoon in the morning on June 23rd. When I came home from work, I saw the other two had finished their cocoons so now I have four cocoons! I can see their wings through the cocoons, but the cocoons themselves dont seem to have changed colors yet. I can also see some of their eyes, I think. They look gold and are poking through the bottom of the cocoon. I am not positive on that being their eyes though. So it has been seven days for one of the caterpillars and six days for the other three. I am a little concerned because the second caterpillar built his cocoon so close to the first one and hope whoever gets out first doesnt knock the other one down. I am sorry for such a long post and I havent actually seen any butterflies, but there must have been one since I found caterpillars! I intend to set any butterflies that come out of their cocoons free after they are out of their vulnerable stage. I dont know if I should release them from my balcony, I live on the second floor. Or if I should take them back to the milkweed patch where I found them. Also, when it looks like they are going to emerge, should I have food for them? And if so, what would they like to snack on? I know the caterpillars only eat the milkweed leaves, not sure what the butterlies eat, though I here there are more options. So just wanted to let everyone know there was at least one monarch outside of philly on June 16th. Thanks for reading!

[Pat in PA]

Where are you (N of Phila)? I live N of Phila also.

You'll be able to see a butterfly clearly through the walls of each chrysalis, they'll be almost all black and orange inside.

Your butterflies, when they emerge, will be just fine as long as their wings have had a chance to expand and dry; after they're full-sized, just leave them out on your balcony or whatever and they'll take off when they're ready. Or if the weather's bad, they'll be content to stay inside on a bouquet of milkweed or buddleia. I've had some stay in a windowsill for a couple of days when the hurricanes came through; as soon as the sun came back out, they were off.

Newly-emerged butterflies generally aren't hungry. Even if they're hanging from nectar flowers while they dry, most of mine just take off and head straight up into the spruce trees, where they sun for hours. Some of them hang around the hanging flower baskets under the eaves for a day or two if it's raining.

Slow start to the season around here; I only have 7 eggs to date.

Pat
Monarch Waystation #12

[Gwynne]

Pat, I live in Lansdale. Where do you live? I would sure love to have a friend to go caterpillar hunting with.

[Fishslime]

Finally seeing female laying eggs-seems only one male and one female in the area-property owner happy to see monarchs after a few years with none-female is using the recently mowed new growth plants for egg laying-makes for easier searching for me-brought home three eggs-wish me luck- lost several cats from larva kits the last few days-sad and expensive- over $1.00 a piece- will share some of my cats with the property owner - he has raised many over the years - going all organic on the farm- and leaving the milkweed grow - from reading, see eggs hatch = 3 - 5 days - Question--how many eggs might be laid by one female monarch????no siteings on my property since June 17-

[Pat]

Fishslime, one female can lay several hundred eggs, but that's over several weeks of flying and spreading them around.

Gwynne we're close neighbors, I'm just a little southwest of you, check your PMs.

Only 2 sightings here thus far, 1 male and 1 female; it's been too rainy for too long. Only 6 eggs collected to date. Going out to check now, it's the first mostly-sunny afternoon we've had in a while. Keep getting those thunderstorms rolling through; one broke down about half of one of my milkweed patches last week.

[Fishslime]

Just dropped off 6 cats to the property owner-saw a darker female working the patch-so at least 2 females around - the male, just eating and chasing girls - so what's new - the wife didn't think it was funny either--sorry

[Fishslime]

One of three eggs hatched already - great - and saw two females on my flowers and milkweed-found one egg- coneflowers and butterfly bush blooming and lots of other flowers - should bring in more butterflies - life is good

[Fishslime]

losing many cats - wild plants on my property are full of ants, earwigs and sparrows - glad the farm is doing better - maybe I'll just watch - planting more milkweed as soon as the rain starts again-

[Farfalla]

What's happening, Fish?
Last I read you were raising lots of them inside? Sorry to hear you are losing them

[Pat]

The ants were a real pain this year -- they started aphid farms on almost every leaf of every plant in one of my waystation patches. Then a solid week's worth of rains snapped most of the taller plants. I gave up on that patch, cut it back to the ground. I spread Bonide around the bases of the other asclepias stands and so far, it seems to be helping keep the ants at bay.

Since then, a female monarch hung around the yard for a week and has left over 6 dozen eggs so far, spread out among 5 groups of plants. Hooray! It took a while longer to get started this year, but it looks like we're going to have a good summer for the butterflies after all.