Where are the butterflies?

[Lindabird]

It's August 4th and I have not seen one Monarch in my yard this year. I also haven't seen any black Swallowtails either. I have taken a few trips this summer and have only seen 1 Monarch and 2 Swallowtails. Is anyone else noticing this?

Linda

[Mona Miller]

If I hadn't grabbed some early eggs and raised them, I would not have seen them in my yard. The predators have been hungry this year. The weather hasn't been butterfly friendly in a lot of places--cold and rain. And, the use of pesticides and herbicides hasn't helped. Here in my area the use of pesticides to combat gypsy moths is still ongoing.

I've seen an absence of Black Swallowtails, but not all season. And, a definite absence of the Swallowtail, Hairstreak families, plus some of the Skippers have skipped town. We actually see a lot of butterflies that migrate into the area from the south. No Painted Ladies. But, I have seen American Ladies. No Cloudless Sulphurs or Sleepy Oranges.

I've noticed more wasp activity in my area. I'm out everyday in my backyard. The wasp are scouting every plant (perennials, annuals, shrubs, trees) and picking them clean.

[Paul Cherubini]

Yesturday Sarah Dalton in east-central Ohio (which is just 250 miles east of Evansville, Indiana) reported an "explosion" of monarchs. East-central Ohio is mostly farmland where GMO crops like BT corn are routinely grown. See below:

From: "Dalton, Sarah" <Dalton@MetroParks.net>
To: dplex-l@listproc.cc.ku.edu

Seeing lots of monarchs on my wanderings through eastern central Ohio. Finding SCADS of eggs (checked ~600 plants = 158 eggs, 34 cats!!!), so many I'm going to have to start giving them away big time...

I predict a monarch EXPLOSION here in about 3-4 weeks!!! I suppose this is the big reproductive push to produce the migratory generation but it seems a bit early this year (perhaps because of our cool summer? Only two days over 90 degrees in July...). It is definitely MORE than I've ever seen before!

Sarah Dalton
Senior Naturalist
Blendon Woods Metro Park
4265 E. Dublin-Granville Rd.
Westerville, OH 43081

[Mona Miller]

Unfortunately, each state, location is different. Some places are seeing tons of butterflies and other places are not. In regards to the GMO crops and the use of round up. I don't know what that has to do with butterfly diversity. That destroys habitat.

On our recent count in Waterford, Virginia. Butterfly numbers with some species was high while the overall diversity of species was way down. We did not see some species at all.

[Paul Cherubini]

My point was monarchs can be abundant in the GMO crop growing regions as appears to be the case this summer in east-central Ohio according to Sarah Dalton's report. Maybe Lindabird would have better luck finding monarchs in Evansville, Indiana if she drove along the gravel roads outside of town and looked for milkweed and monarchs along the margins of the BT corn and Roundup Ready soybean fields.

[Bunny Jo]

Wish you could come to Daytona Beach, FL and you'll see lots of them. I've had Monarchs in my garden continuously as has my neighbor who just started a garden with milkweed and other nectar plants. I planted some parsley and dill and have had Black Swallowtails laying eggs on them and flying in my backyard. They love pentas as a nectar source and I have quite a few planted in the same area.

[texas butterfly]

In North Houston Texas area, was seeing a Monarch butterfly almost daily the past week. Morning and Late Afternoon. But, an individual and not lots. I'm not seeing other butterflies either.

She left me lots of eggs and already many have already hatched and are tiny little cute catepillars.

Just brought in about 30 or 40 eggs and starting another batch of butterflies.

We FINALLY have had some rain.

Seeing LOTS of dragonflies. Probably a LOCUST bug or something. Don't know if they are predators of butterflies. Some of the dragonflies, if they are dragonflies look to be as big as hummingbirds. I saw a strange incident yesterday where it seemed that one of the BUGS chased something in my neighbors gutter on their second story. Then the BUG or whatever it was took off and something was making a horrible squealing sound. Don't know if the BUG hurt himself or if it had caught something. Just very strange. Whatever it was it flew off VERY FAST.

The hummingbirds are coming thru now in the migration south and will be coming thru for the next 2 months.

[Mona Miller]

Dragonflies migrate, too.

[dandjtaylor]

Up here in New England, we also suddenly had what I would call an explosion in the past 2 weeks. Just yesterday, I collected 50 new eggs in my garden! The chrysalis box has 120 in it with 9 eclosing today!

380 total in stages between eggs and chrysalis with 17 releases so far. Hopefully, you'll get some soon, if not, certainly on their way "down south".

Dwayne
Salem, MA
Waystation #2638

[Mona Miller]

She'd probably get some from the Northern states. I think right now that Monarchs are heading south and not north. Fall is already beginning here. I heard a flock of geese go over last week, honking as they flew. Wonder if that is some type of direction they use for those flying at the end of the V.

[Mitsi]

I am in Lake Geneva WI and have seen only one Monarch this summer...actually haven't seen many at all except for a few cabbage butterflies. Our once sleepy lil town has started to look like WI Dells so that is
probably why. One did land on my hand the day after my mom passed in 2006 in which I decided was my Angel!

[Mona Miller]

Amazing. Monarch never usually land on people's hand.

[mich]

This is my first post from Lincolnshire, IL. In mid-May I had an explosion of cats on my oldest & biggest milkweed - it had just begun filling out; there were over 150 cats on that one poor bush. When it got to the point where I didn't think I could feed them all, I collected 40-50 and took them to a mom & pop nursery where the employees assured me they had or could access enough milkweed to pull them through. The bush was in shambles; eaten to 2" nubs. This however, seems to have worked out well because it grew back big and lush and did not flower (buds were eaten) so that even now when most milkweed is starting to look ragged, it looks great - I'm cutting the buds off next year if they aren't eaten! It's an especially good thing because I have collected - since 7/25 - about 120 eggs. After the great explosion, I actively looked, on a daily basis, for cats. Throughout late June and July I could not find a single one. I do have lots of spiders, ants and some stinkbugs. In fact, when I began collecting the eggs I found that each milkweed bush (and I have several) had at least two resident daddy long legs and assorted smaller spiders. So I set out to save the monarchs. The first went chrysalis on 8/7 and they're going at the rate of about 10 per day. I haven't lost a crawler yet, but I have had some eggs fail to hatch. It has been rewarding, but exhausting. I'm not doing this on this scale again until I retire... Sorry for being so long-winded; it's kind of nice being able to share this with folks who actually care. Most seem to think I'm a little crazy...

[Mona Miller]

My friends think I'm wonderful, my family thinks I'm crazy. It is so good to have butterfly friends. : )

[mich]

My family AND friends still think I'm a little bit off... but they're coming around. Slowly. My family - all of whom live in WI - will be helping me out with the last of the cats. I need to go there for the weekend - and the cats have to eat - so they're going with me. My sister, bless her heart, spent the last 5 days running around scrounging milkweek. She found a treasure trove of it at the Flower Factory just outside Madison. They do not use pesticides and had a number of cats on their sale plants. Yay - they'll eat well. And have an additional 120 miles to cover...

The local PBS station had a little feature on the local newscast that covered a man in Chicago who was raising monarchs. He gave a shoutout to MonarchWatch when he demonstrated tagging the butterflies. After watching the newscast, one of my friends allowed as how I may not be quite as eccentric as she had thought if there were other people doing this. TV coverage is a good thing.

As an update to my previous post, the first of my butterflys flew on 8/19; since then I have released 46 with another 3-4 going today. It has been very cool and the butterflies are sleeping in. One warm day and 25-30 are going to go at once! I had the trifecta of death over the weekend and was glad I'd read in one of the posts about the freezing euthanasia method. I killed a cat that had just shed his skin; I jarred him loose from the side, he fell, black gook leaked from both ends and he started turning black. I froze him. And I won't ever do THAT again. One of my butterflies eclosed overnight, apparently fell to the floor of the aquarium and was unable to right herself. Her poor wings were so deformed that she would never be able to fly and one side couldn't be moved at all. She was trying so hard. I cried all day after I had to freeze her. It did teach me, however, exactly why the aquarium is not such a great idea. Works well for cats, but the slick surface can be death to the butterflies. I won't ever let THAT happen again. The "birthing aquarium" is now lined with hardware mesh. One of my cats decided to pupate by attaching himself to the side of the aquarium. I stood there and told him he was being foolish, but couldn't do anything about it at the moment; he was one of several pupating at once. I planned to move him as soon as I could open the aquarium up, but within an hour of flatspotting his chrysalis, it leaked a couple drops of clear fluid. I have not removed the chrysalis, but I assume that is a bad sign. The chrysalis looks normal, just flattened on one side at the top; I cannot stand the thought of putting another butterfly to sleep - should I destroy the chrysalis?

[Mona Miller]

I'd let the chrysalis, emerge and sometimes you'll find they are fine and other times not. This is how it goes especially, when you rear a lot. Many more make it than in the wild, but some don't make it inside.

[Monarch MaMa]

Another thought on rescuing a "J" flat on the side of ANY container when it's about to transform, remove the chrysalis by taking a nice clean straight pin and carefully working up the silk platform. You should pull up about a 1"-2" diameter of silk and pin thru the silk only, set the "J" that would have been flattened on your container side into an upside down styrofoam cup by poking the pin into the side of the cup. Be sure to allow it to hang freely so it won't touch anything. I've heard of others misting the silk to loosen it but I haven't done that yet.

[Mona Miller]

You should try the misting (spray bottle with water). Then, use the pin. It is so much easier and takes just a few seconds. After finding this out because my tent was all dew covered in the morning, I was amazed at how many people did not know about it. Later I read this in Dr. Urquhart's book on the Monarch Butterfly. Wish I had read his book earlier.

[Monarch MaMa]

Here it is September 10 and I've only seen 10 wild monarchs to date this year.

Very sad testimonial to the current world we live in. Fortunately I've released nearly 90 of my own, mostly males this year. I'm going to make up some flyers to ask a few homeowners to allow me to dig up their yard milkweeds where I've found dozens of cats, then they mowed down the 'weeds the next week. If people only knew that these milkweeds produce beautiful butterflies.... education, education, education !!

[Mona Miller]

http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations ... ochure.pdf
This is a great promotional brochure from Monarch Watch on the Monarch Waystation Program and on the necessity of milkweed for Monarchs. Share this with them, too.

[Paul Cherubini]

Tens of thousands of monarchs were seen in the BT Corn, Roundup Ready soybean and Roundup Ready alfalfa growing regions around Norfolk, Nebraska during the past 10 days:
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/f ... 90309.html

[Mona Miller]

MIGRATION. How many butterflies did not live because they didn't have food due to the use of roundup, which does kill milkweed?

[mich]

The very last of my butterflies flew off on September 14. It was yet ANOTHER male. Although work prevented me from seeing the bulk of the butterflies leave, the 40 or so I was able to see were overwhelming male - I'd say 90%. And the little fellow that attached himself to the side of the aquarium (male!) was kind enough to eclose before I left for work so that I could see he was entirely normal. I'd removed everyone else from the aquarium and tipped it on its side so that he was hanging. Good tip, though, about the misting and moving; I'm finding there is so much to learn. My husband still thinks I'm crazy (in a cute way), but suggested last week that we till up a sunny area in the back so I can plant more milkweed. He's coming around...

I do have one more question. The man I saw on television sharing his method of raising cats involved a clear plastic cup for each egg/cat which was set on a paper plate. Each day (several times, I would think) he would lift the cup and place leaves on the plate for each cat and they would grow and eventually pupate at the top of the cup. My initial reaction was that he had to be nuts - that method takes up alot of room. Not to mention my four legged cats that would be all over those unsecured plastic cups... I have since read about that method, so there must be a good reason for it. Is it because it's a more sanitary way to raise them? Is it a mistake to let the cats mingle? Oy. I can't imagine have 100 or more of those cups to deal with!

[Monarch MaMa]

Well, you'll find that raising cats involves personal preference. Yes, it may be good to keep them separate to prevent disease (OE, Nosema) from spreading, but using live plants keeps them healthier & I think they get larger than breaking off leaves. Some of us work and can only feed once daily. If you look around the forums, esp the "Goal: tag 500", you'll see other ways to raise them. You can provide handraised milkweed in pots set in a large room or screenhouse or put milkweed sets in pots of wet sand (I like florist tubes), use aquariums, fine screenlined boxes, large plastic storage containers etc. Keep looking around the forum for ideas that work for you!