Friday, August 01, 2014

First Monarch Seen


The raingarden in the front yard yesterday, next to busy Harrison Street, was where I saw my first monarch of the season in Princeton.

I had been concerned that the cool summer, pleasant as it is for us, could reduce the reproduction of the monarchs as they build their population from one generation to the next through the summer. But I see no mention of that as a factor in a detailed update on the monarch's status by Chip Taylor, at http://monarchwatch.org/blog/. The website also provides a means to report sightings of monarchs, and there's an email discussion group one can also sign up for. Taylor is predicting somewhat larger numbers than last year, but a fuller recovery will require restoring milkweed to the landscape, particularly to farmland in the midwest, where it has been decimated by Roundup Ready corn and soybeans.


From a slightly different angle, the monarch's wings look pretty beaten up. Hopefully it hasn't had to work too hard to find other monarchs.

Feel free to enter your sightings in the comment section below.




1 comment:

  1. We finally saw a single monarch in our backyard 3 days ago. It hasn't reappeared. Still, one is better than zero.

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