Painted Lady Migration

[Patrick Foley]

Vanessa cardui, Painted Lady, is on the move in Sacramento up disturbed
grassland along the American River at CSUS flying North (downstream). I
am guessing that they fly up valleys, across passes and down the other
side. In Davis, they followed an old creek bed west and then across a
cemetery's turf. Along Cache creek in northern Yolo County, California
they headed upstream to the NW across a dense field of Lupinus
microcarpus. A very rough guess would be one Lady crossed a 30 meter
strip each minute in each of these locations, slightly more along the
American River. I don't know how well they are hitting the highlands.
Last weekend I spent 12 hours in the field in Vernal pools, Chapparal
and mixed coniferous forest and saw none. But it was much cooler last
weekend.

Some of these Ladies are very beat up, some are rather unworn. They
appear to be harder to catch when the temperature gets warmer. In my
ecology class we are doing mark recapture on Battus philenor, Pipe Vine
Swallowtail, and a few students marked Painted Ladies! If you see any
Vanessa with the red numbers 21, 22, 51, 54, 76, 89, 92, 95, 201, 211,
213, 221, 221, 224, 225, 230 flying in Northern California, those may be
mine.

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu

Chuck Vaughn wrote:

> I haven't seen a word on here about this but there's a big
> Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) migration underway here in
> California.
>
> My parents in Palm Desert said they've been inundated with
> them for 2 weeks. A friend who drives in from Placerville
> had them all over his truck today. I was just outside here
> in Mtn. View and I'm seeing one pass by at least every 30
> seconds.
>
> Chuck <aa6g at aa6g.org>
>
>
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