monarchs ~ 01/14/12 ~ Monarch Grove

monarch butterfly
Danaus plexippus

I don't like to repeat myself on Nature ID too often, but I felt these photos deserved the story they tell. On our way home from the movies (the new Sherlock Holmes film - I've been agog for all things Sherlock lately and have been thoroughly enjoying reading ACD's stories, too), we figured it was such a warm and sunny day that it might be a good time to check out the monarchs in our town's monarch park. We were quite surprised to see so many cars packed outside of the PG Adult School that we drove around to the lesser known access trail. Maybe it was the holiday weekend and the pleasant weather that brought out the visitors in droves?

Come to find out the monarchs are not clustering in the non-native eucalyptus trees in the sanctuary like they often do. Instead, they were primarily located in the neighboring motel yard. This is the first time I've seen monarchs clustered on native trees here in CA, like the Monterey cypress shown in the pictures above. This winter has been filled with a variety of local news and controversy about our overwintering monarchs. Last month, hundreds were found dead on the ground without abdomens and without any satisfactory explanation as to why. Then, there's been the continuing conflict of over-pruning the eucalyptus by the City to avoid another million dollar lawsuit, donors purchasing spendy eucalyptus trees to supplement the pruned trees, volunteers obtaining winter flowering plants, researchers pulling out plants placed by the volunteers, and tubs and tubs of plants purchased that now are left neglected and dying. Sheesh! The petty politics of this town sometimes gets me down. At the very least, it was great to see so many tourists simply enjoying the wonder of a wintering cluster of monarch butterflies.

tree year project 2011, #11

monarch butterfly resting on coast Douglas-fir
Danaus plexippus on Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii
Pinaceae

In the past week, I've seen more monarchs flying around town on the sunnier days. One was kind enough to rest on the Douglas-fir tree that I'm featuring for The Tree Year project. And, no, those orange-brown blobs in the second picture aren't monarchs; they're cones. I wanted to also show how brown the cones have gotten. Actually they started turning from green to brown back in August, but I'm just now getting a picture of it.

http://thetreeyear.wordpress.com/tree-year-posts/life-on-the-tree/insects/

habitat ~ 10/02/11 ~ Monarch Grove Sanctuary

Pacific Grove's Monarch Grove Sanctuary
October 2, 2011

I don't have any pictures of monarchs here. We saw maybe 5, mostly clustered on one lone pride of Madeira bloom. We were told by the ever-active volunteer Tama O. that the majority of monarchs don't actually arrive until mid-November. Many tourists are a bit disappointed to see so few monarchs now, even though most everything about the Sanctuary states the butterflies start arriving by October. A lot has changed in the park since we last visited.

The pride and joy of Pacific Grove has been surrounded by death and controversy. Back in 2004, an elderly tourist was killed here by a tree that broke during a wind storm, hence the sign. My question is why would anyone go out looking for butterflies during a storm? The City settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $1 million. Since then, the City has done extensive tree removal and pruning, which raised the hackles of some monarch enthusiasts. Through private donations and some City funds, new trees were purchased and improvements made to this small 2.4 acre park. For more information about the Monarch Grove Sanctuary, check out the Pacific Grove Monarch Conservancy.

monarchs ~ 10/31/10 ~ Morro Bay

monarch butterfly
Danaus plexippus

I can't say this picture of clustered monarchs is any better than last year when we visited Morro Bay. We laughed over the fact we drove 150 miles south and then looked for monarchs, when just down the street from where we live in Pacific Grove we have our own Monarch Grove Sanctuary. Silly, really. I still haven't made a visit to the local sanctuary yet this season to see their newly purchased eucalyptus trees... that may be a story for another time.

From a purely casual observation standpoint, there didn't seem to be very many monarchs this year, perhaps, even less than last year. I got a crick in my neck from looking up for so long in the very tall eucalyptus. I didn't include any links in the common and scientific names above, because I figure anyone can find information online about monarchs. More than half of what's available online doesn't go beyond a 1st grade level of understanding, anyways.

I want to give a shout out to Chris Grinter at The Skeptical Moth for being, well, skeptical.

ps 11/23/10 - I've been sent an e-mail asking about monarch numbers this year in Pacific Grove. I'm not associated with any of the following groups, disagree with some of what they say, and generally prefer to stay out of what is increasingly becoming a political fray... but thought I'd make a list o' links for reference:
Arizona Monarchs
Butterfly Digest
Monarch Alert
Monarch Grove Sanctuary January 2009
Monarch Watch Forum
Pacific Grove Message Board
Ventana Wildlife Society
Western Monarch Discussion Group
Xerces Society

monarch ~ 06/27/10 ~ Rec Trail

monarch butterfly
Danaus plexippus

My hometown of Pacific Grove is somewhat known for its overwintering sites of the monarch butterfly. In fact, there's a registered something somewhere that says PG is "Butterfly Town, U.S.A.", in addition to "America's Last Hometown" and "America's Most Romantic Town".  I think our local chamber of commerce went into overdrive with these "known as" slogans.  And get this, there's a city ordinance on the books that'll fine you $1000 if you're caught molesting a monarch.  I'm not joking.  As I've stated before there are at least 300 known monarch overwintering sites all along the Central Coast of CA, so PG is hardly unique.

As evidenced with my picture above, monarchs are here during the summer months, too. An older friend Pat Antonio (doing well in her 90's) says she remembers there being more monarchs here year-round when the Southern Pacific Railroad still operated and milkweed grew wild along the tracks.  She lives within view of the old railroad station.  The former track path has since been converted into the Monterey Bay Recreation Trail.  She claims that since the City started maintaining the trail and removing milkweed, she noticed a dramatic decrease in summer populations of monarchs.

ps 09/18/14 - Pat passed away last year March.  I was sad to hear of it, but she lived an amazingly adventurous life.  She gave me Powell and Hogue's California Insects when I first moved back to CA.  I had Jerry sign it, and I treasure it.  Thank you, Pat, for your stories and encouragement.

From the time I initially wrote this post in 2010, I asked another friend Bee about Pat's report of milkweed along the railroad tracks here in town.  While Bee was a student up at Stanford studying plants, she would often ride the train home.  However, she didn't live here in town and would be picked up for the short ride down to the Highlands.  She claims there never was any milkweed.  She's also 15 years younger than Pat, so it could be a timing thing if the City had already started weeding.  Then, Vern Yadon, our local botanist of piperia-naming fame, told me he doesn't believe milkweed can even grow on the Peninsula because of the climate.  It's often loudly proclaimed that Pacific Grove does not have monarchs here year-round (I'm not sure why, maybe to boost the specialness of the overwintering tourism?), but this post is evidence to refute popular knowledge.  With all my butterfly activities this year, I specifically noted seeing monarchs flying past my living room window in July, August and just yesterday.  So, I'm telling you, there's gotta be milkweed somewhere near.  It just hasn't been found, yet.

pss 10/25/14 - I originally, and quite ignorantly, included a bit about tagging by the Ventana Wildlife Society, mainly because of my tagging experience in Ohio.  They don't tag!  They do an annual Thanksgiving Count.  Ha!  That was a gross error on my part.  Also, I discovered a friend of ours has non-native milkweed growing in her yard.  She said she got the seeds at the local natural history museum, and she had plenty of monarch caterpillars this year.  According to the package, the seeds should not be planted within a mile of the Sanctuary.  There you go.

in memoriam to Sonja

monarch butterfly

Danaus plexippus

Pacific Grove has two main sites where monarchs overwinter (out of an estimated 300 identified sites along California's Coast): the Monarch Grove Sanctuary and George Washington Park. The monarch count in the area is down again this year. I find it interesting that the Ventana Wildlife Society found the butterflies move between sites as much as 40 miles away throughout the winter.

By Valentine's Day (easy enough to remember), most of the monarchs will have mated and begin heading out of the area to lay eggs in the Central Valley. I like this map of monarch migrations in CA.

At some point, I'll have to post my Polaroid pics from 10 years ago when I raised almost 1000 monarch butterflies in my OH apartment. The trick was to prevent my 3 cats from playing with the adults. I hadn't meant to raise so many, but I didn't have the heart to throw away all the eggs... especially when many of the local nature centers had infection issues that killed off all their stock. I liked to call my bedroom the "butterfly love shack" - that was a fun summer!

ps 3/10/10 - I want to acknowledge my mentor Dr. Sonja Teraguchi. She shared with me the thrill of raising life, the importance of natural fluctuations, and the value of documenting my observations. Thanks to recent communications with Art and Renee, I've been reminded of her influence in my life and have especially missed her spirit and inspiration lately. Click on my lepidoptera label in memory of Sonja.

monarchs ~ 10/25/09 ~ Morro Bay

monarch butterfly
Danaus plexippus

For all those years I camped in Morro Bay State Park as a kid during the summers, I never knew there was a significant monarch overwintering site just behind the campgrounds. It was great to see them for my first time. The overwintering numbers are far fewer than in Mexico, so it's not an obvious tourist attraction. They really are difficult to spot in the eucalyptus trees, but once you know they're there... WOW!