Looking for Monarch Suppliers

[Paul Cherubini]

Robert Chehey wrote:
> 
> I beg to differ with the last sentence.  The Monarch is (or was) quite common in
> the interior PNW, being found in almost every county in ID, OR, western MT and WA,
> except for some extreme coastal counties and extreme northern ID and MT counties.
> I have counted 40-50 an hour passing transects, even in urban areas, during the
> fall migration.  The reason I said was, above, is that the population has crashed,
> coincidentally to the very stormy winter 3 years ago on the CA coast.  For two
> years we saw almost none.  Last summer they had begun to appear again.  They have
> almost unlimited food here, since Asclepias speciosa is one of our most common
> roadside weeds.
> 
> It is a common misconception that the PNW ends at the Cascade crest.

I fully agree with your assessment.

The summer and early fall of 1997 was a good year for monarchs in the
Pacific Northwest and in the Great Basin. Numbers were considerably
lower in the summer of 1998. One reason may be that very cold, cloudy
and rainy spring weather in California prevented many overwintered
females from laying eggs (within California) until the last week of
April. The new generation of monarchs produced from these eggs didn't
emerge until mid-June. So it wasn't until the end of June and in early
July that the first significant numbers of monarchs began showing up in
the Great Basin region to the north and east of California. This is
about 3-4 weeks later than in a normal weather year.

Things are delayed again this spring due to cold weather, but not as
severely as last spring. Most egg laying in the interior valleys of
California took place in mid-April and should produce a new generation
of monarchs by about June 1. These butterflies should begin appearing in
Idaho and Washington in mid-late June.

In exceptionally warm years like the spring of 1992, even some
overwintered monarchs penetrate the Sierras and Cascade Range in early
April and turn up in the Boise, Idaho area in mid-April and in
southeastern Washington in late April. In early May that year faded,
presumably overwintered monarchs were also seen in Portland and in
western Washington.

Paul Cherubini, El Dorado, California