Monarch Butterfly Migration Update 10/23/09

[David Moulton]

Monarchs Crossing Mexico by the Thousands At last! Thousands and thousands of monarchs appeared across northern Mexico this week. Observers in the state of Coahuila say this is the best migration they’ve seen in years. Señora Rocío Treviño, who coordinates Mexico's migration-tracking program Correo Real, forwarded the news. She wrote late Tuesday night after her spectacular monarch-watching day:

October 20: Saltillo, Coahuila
Today monarch butterflies adorned the sky and fields across Coahuila like we haven’t seen for years. From Cuatrocienegas to Saltillo people reported thousands of butterflies. I went out into my garden this morning and counted an average of 60 per minute for nearly two hours. This evening, I took my granddaughters to a stream in the "Boca de Leon" canyon to search for roosts. At last, there were clusters of some three thousand butterflies and something incredible that I have never encountered in all my years--a monarch with a tag! Unfortunately, I didn’t have my net so couldn’t catch the butterfly to read the tag but I did take a picture.

[John K. Glaab, CIPS]

This is great. We are here in Michoacan waiting for them