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Contents:
1) Welcome!
2) 2003 Monarch Watch Memberships
4) Rate of Progression of the Spring Migration
8) Monarch Watch Featured in a French Magazine
9) Plants Available – a Local Fundraiser for Monarch Watch
10) New Items in Gulliver's Gift Shop
11) How to Unsubscribe from this Update
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1) Welcome to Monarch Watch's Update List!
You are receiving this email because you have provided Monarch Watch with your email address at some point and expressed interest in receiving updates from us. If you do not wish to receive these periodic (probably monthly) email updates or feel that you were subscribed in error, please see the unsubscribe information at the end of this message.
Have you somehow missed (or misplaced ;-) an update? Now you can find all of the updates archived online at
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If you know someone that you think might be interested in receiving these email updates from Monarch Watch with monarch news, special announcements, tips on raising monarchs in your classroom, monarch tagging information and a whole lot more, please send them on over to
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Monarch Watch (http://www.MonarchWatch.org) is a not-for-profit educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas. We run a Monarch tagging program and offer Monarch Rearing Kits, Monarch Tagging Kits, and other educational/promotional materials that allow you to actively experience the monarch life cycle and its spectacular fall migration.If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us anytime!
Your friends at Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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2) 2003 Monarch Watch Memberships
It’s never too early to place your order for your annual Monarch Watch Membership and extra tags – so why not order now, while you’re thinking about it? ;-) Remember, there are only a fixed number of tags available each year and recently we have been running out of tags later in the season – to make sure you receive all of the tags that you’ll need for the fall place your order early. 2003 Memberships will include 25 tags, the premigration newsletter, the 2003 Season Summary (mailed summer 2004) and one or two additional mailings. Orders may be placed online via Gulliver’s Gift Shop at
and offline orders may be called, faxed, or mailed to:
MonarchWatch@HomeEarth.com
3515 Silverside Road, Suite 203
Wilmington, DE 19810
toll-free phone - (800) 780-9986
toll-free fax - (877) 687-4878
For your convenience, an abbreviated order form is available at
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/order
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3) Status of the Population – by Chip Taylor
Last month I wrote the following: "Offspring from the first eggs laid by returning overwintering monarchs in Texas should be heading north in the next week. The first of these new butterflies could reach the middle of the US (e.g. Kansas City) during the first week of May." Some of these things did come true, and on the 9th I posted the following to Dplex-L:
"I was working in the yard (16 miles west of Lawrence) on the 5th when a shadow crossed my field of vision. It was too large to be a painted lady, or a red admiral, and too slow for a bird so I turned to see my first monarch of the year in Kansas. It looked faded but I couldn't be sure. The next day, around 6PM, I saw another monarch. This one was clearly a first generation monarch as its colors were rich and the wings in prime condition."
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any monarchs since, although the weather hasn’t been ideal. Therefore, I don’t have a good sense of the numbers of monarchs moving north from the southern states at this time. A check of the sightings reported to Journey North
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/images/graphics/monarch/monarch_map050903.html
as of May 9th shows that monarchs have reached about 42 degrees North over an area from Nebraska, Illinois to Massachusetts. We will obtain a better idea of the numbers of monarchs coming out of Texas in the next 10 days. Many prairie plants will come into bloom in this period, including some milkweed species, and the passing monarchs will stop long enough to nectar up giving us a chance to assess their numbers. My expectations are high. Thus far, I have seen 7 species of lepidoptera in Kansas that originate in Texas and the southwest (orange sulfur, dainty sulfur, variegated fritillary, red admiral, painted lady, American lady and white lined sphinx). When the springs are dry in Texas, I see relatively few of these northward dispersing species. This year they are all abundant, especially the variegated fritillary, which is usually not common here, yet it is this year. Last year - a dry spring in Texas - these species were scarce in May and so were monarchs. The most spectacular spring flow of southern butterflies into Kansas that I’ve ever seen occurred in 2001. I don’t expect this year to be that good, but it should be better than 2002. I will have more on the May monarchs in the next update.
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4) Rate of Progression of the Spring Migration
As you may know, the fall migration is relatively predictable and the leading edge of the migration progresses at an average rate of about 25 miles per day from as far north as Winnipeg, Canada (50 degrees N) in mid August to Angangueo, Michoacán (the center of the overwintering area, 19-20 degrees N) in late October. The pattern for the first part of the spring migration is similar. As best we can tell, from late February to the end of April, the overwintering butterflies advance at roughly the same pace or 25 miles per day. The first generation butterflies appear to be doing something else. Based on assumptions of the points of origin of butterflies sighted on the fronts of the migration recorded through May and early June, these first generation butterflies appear to be moving at a rate of 50-55 miles per day. This is the fastest pace for the movement of the population during the annual cycle. The biology of this movement is not well understood. Typically, monarchs emerge, undergo a few days of maturation, and then mate in the warmer months. We don’t know whether these northward dispersing monarchs mate before moving north or mate along the way. Most of the May and early June monarchs I’ve seen in Kansas are headed N or slightly NE and are flying relatively fast at 3-5 meters above ground. Why are they moving so fast - what’s the hurry? The answer appears to be reproduction. Based on the well established principal in biology that those that breed first have the highest reproductive rate and therefore leave the most progeny, the biological imperative is to reach the most favorable breeding area as early as possible; hence, the dash to the north.
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5) Spring Conditions – by Chip Taylor
Good news: the drought is easing over much of the upper Midwest. Spring rains appeared to have eased the concerns about drought in the heart of the corn belt, a major breeding area for late summer monarchs. A glance at the map on the Drought Monitor web site for 6 May shows that the drought still lingers for much of western Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. The drought has eased in most of Minnesota except for the NE corner, a mostly forested region that is generally devoid of milkweeds and monarchs. If the spring rains continue, the drought should ease over much of the monarch’s breeding range through the early part of the summer.
Reports of milkweed growth throughout the country suggest that milkweeds are available everywhere for the first generation monarchs that are now moving north from the southern states. Here in eastern Kansas the Asclepias viridis in the pastures are coming into bloom, the A. syriaca is up to 20 inches in some places, and the A. viridiflora, - a relatively uncommon plant but one which is used extensively as a host for monarchs in May - is up to a foot tall and has flower buds. In my garden, one of my A. incarnata plants is getting a jump on the season and already has large flower buds – at least a month early.
Drought Monitor:
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
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We have nothing new to report on tag recoveries except that Sarah is going through the records, as time permits, to verify all the details that pertain to each recovered butterfly. This is a substantial task as, once again, the number of recoveries exceeds 1,000. As Sarah proceeds, she is sending out certificates of appreciation to all taggers who have had one of their tagged butterflies recovered. We will post the recovery data online as soon as we can.
Domestic recovery records for the 2002 tagging season are currently online at
http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/2002_recoveries.html
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7) Monarch Watch is Moving – by Chip Taylor
So where are we going – CA? MX? No, we’re headed to WC – that’s West Campus for those of you who don’t know ;-)
Since its inception, Monarch Watch has been housed in my office and laboratory complex in 7005 Haworth Hall, and as the program has grown nearly all the space has been usurped by the needs of the program. My space has been reduced to a small corner with a computer and all the normal lab functions for teaching and research have been suspended. In fact, the growth of Monarch Watch and the number of things we can do in terms of inviting teachers and students into the laboratory, have been limited by the lack of space. Thus, when the Biological Survey moved into a new building, we made a proposal to move into their old space in Foley Hall next to the greenhouse we use on West Campus. Foley is also next to our sometime butterfly house (the Biohouse), so the move would put us in the immediate proximity of all of our support facilities instead of having to drive across campus. The proposal didn’t seem to be going anywhere until the University found that it needed to remove the temporary buildings (trailers) near Foley and the greenhouse to make room for a new research building. Since we use two of the trailers for Monarch Watch, removing us from the trailers necessitated finding other space for us. Our proposal to use Foley Hall was then acted on and we obtained some of the space we asked for: a large lab, three offices, and three rearing rooms.
We are in the process of moving out of the trailers and into Foley. Once the trailers are empty, we will start to move everything from Haworth. It is going to take some time, but we should be running smoothly in Foley by August. Once we are well established in the new space we will be able to invite teachers and students to visit our facility and to give training programs. We’ll have more information about our move (maybe some photos too) in next month’s update.
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8) Monarch Watch Featured in a French Magazine – by Chip Taylor
During our March trip to the overwintering sites we took some time to meet with Thomas Pignot, a writer, and Eric Tourneret, a photographer, who work for a French magazine "Point De Vue". This is a popular news and light feature magazine with lots of pictures. Eric was particularly interested in getting shots of me, and of the monarchs, that could be printed on two pages. The article appeared in the 23-29 April issue. The article covers ground that is familiar to most of you, but the photos are excellent. Eric has promised to provide us with many of the photos and when we get them we will add them to the web site.
http://www.pointdevue.fr
(however, the article itself is not available online)
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9) Plants Available – a Local Fundraiser for Monarch Watch
Continuously Blooming Plants for Butterflies and Hummingbirds
If you are located in the Lawrence area and would like to add continuously blooming butterfly and hummingbird plants to your garden, make plans to stop by! The plants will be available at the third floor greenhouse in Haworth from 3-5pm on Friday. These plants can also be picked up on West Campus in front of Foley Hall on Saturday from 8 -11am. We are requesting a $2.00 donation to Monarch Watch for the herbaceous perennials and annuals and $3.00 each for the shrubs.
Most plants are in 4" pots - these are relatively small plants but they are beginning to grow rapidly. The milkweeds are all roughly the same size at maturity although the incarnata can get a bit taller. The Buddleia become bushes of varying heights depending on how well they survive the winters. The Caryopteris blooms late in the summer and can reach a height of 2.5 ft. Lantanas and Pentas are typical garden flowers, using about 1-1.5 cubic ft of space. The Porterweed can be 3 times larger than most Pentas at the end of the season. This species grows well from cuttings. All the annuals can be wintered indoors if someone wishes to do so. The perennials will survive the winter best if they are well mulched in the fall.
All are good butterfly flowers and some will continue to bloom until frost. The Porterweed is especially attractive to hummingbirds but humming birds visit most of the other species as well.
If you are interested and would like to see a complete list of the plants (15 varieties/11 species) or need directions, please send Chip an email at chip@ku.edu
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10) New Items in Gulliver's Gift Shop
We’ve added a couple of new items to Gulliver’s Gift Shop that you may be interested in:
Rearing Sleeve - $10.00
Perfect for raising monarchs and other critters on plants indoors or out! These white mesh sleeves have a clear panel for observation, one full-length zipper that allows the sleeve to open flat, and long strings for sealing the ends around branches or tree-trunks. Sleeves may be zipped together to increase the diameter so as to enclose sections of tree trunks or other large objects. Sleeves are approximately 24"' x 27" (unzipped).
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/update/2003/rearing_sleeve.html
and
Milkweed, Monarchs and More: A Field Guide to the Invertebrate Community in the Milkweed Patch - $9.00
by Ba Rea, Karen Oberhauser and Michael A. Quinn
A diverse natural community thrives in the milkweed growing along our highways and woodland edges; in our open fields, fragmented prairies and vacant lots; and in our lovingly tended gardens.
A growing fascination with monarchs has made many of us more aware of milkweed - the host plant for the monarch caterpillar.
Milkweed, Monarchs and More is designed to help students, citizen scientists and other milkweed patch enthusiasts in their exploration of this fascinating community.
To order these items or any of the 1,000s available through Gulliver’s Gift Shop visit our online storefront at
or call, fax, mail:
MonarchWatch@HomeEarth.com
3515 Silverside Road, Suite 203
Wilmington, DE 19810
toll-free phone - (800) 780-9986
toll-free fax - (877) 687-4878
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Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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