Monarch numbers/Monarch watch

[Giles Morrell]

bcurry at WORLDCHAT.COM wrote:

>On 28 August I witnessed perhaps the largest flight of Monarchs I've ever
>seen. This was south across the extrem western end of Lake Ontario in
>southern Ontario at Hamilton.  A cold front had passed through overnight and
>the wind was fairly brisk from the NNW.  By working along the south shore of
>the lake here I estimated that approximately 1000/minute was coming ashore
>along a stretch of about 5 Kilometres (and they could have been flying
>further east where I didn't check).  In the two hours 1500 - 1700 that I
>observed before the flight stopped  I estimated that about 120 000 passed.
>It's quite possible that they started at 1000hr as conditions were good
>throughout.  If so, more than .5 million passed on this single day!

The best Monarch year in many here in Quebec (Gatineau Valley).
Numbers have ben consistently high throughout August - sighting 10 -
20 per hour of wandering about the local milkweed patches. Still many
about the week of September 9. I thought the overwintering population
in Mexico had been decimated by frost last winter so what's up?