Bill Calvert's Post-Storm Visit to Sierra Chincua Sanctuary

[Mike Quinn]

Bill's notes are posted on Journey North's web site. Mike Quinn

-----------------------------------------------

Field Notes from Dr. Bill Calvert:

Post-Storm Visit to Sierra Chincua Sanctuary

Wednesday, February 13, 2002

We arrived at the Rincon Villa Lobos, watered up, a transportable lunch of
quesadillas made with blue corn tortillas, and started walking. The scene in
the Sierra Chincua was rare. Cold, wet, wind laced with clouds blew in from
the west. At times the mountains were completely obscured. The ground was so
wet that our dust masks, normally needed at this dry time of year, was
useless. There was no dust. This is a wet, wet winter. We've seen this
before many times, but this year seems especially wet, the ground is wet,
the trees were dripping as the clouds condensed on the boughs, there were
pools of water on the trails. There was no dust!

The Chincua butterfly colony was very remote, an hours' walk, but the walk
was incredible through high altitude managed forests. Things were different.
Many plant species were brown or yellow, with no green foliage. They had
frozen. They looked the way your tropical plants look when you forget to
bring them inside. Millions of small branch-lets from the fir trees littered
the ground, brought down by the combination of snow, ice and wind. At the
colony the first impression was there was little mortality. Nowhere could be
seen the piles of dead butterflies described in the press. But in the air
there was a faint stench of decaying butterflies. Presumably the ground is
littered with them, but they were in the ravine where we were not taken.

The Chincua colony was located in Zapatero Canyon at the boundary line
between the municipalities of Sengio and Angangauo. The usual sight of trees
completely festooned with butterflies was apparent. The colony was
approximately 600 meters long by 30 meters wide but with many thin spots.
Using the estimate of 10 million butterflies per hectare there were about 10
million butterflies in the colony. (So 1 hectare, that's a very rough
estimate.) Plenty of butterflies for all who wished to see them. But rumor
has it that things were much worst at Rosario, the neighboring colony that I
won't see until I return next week.

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/spring2002/species/monarch/Update021402.html#F
ield

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Mike Quinn
Invertebrate Biologist
Wildlife Diversity Program
Texas Parks & Wildlife
mike.quinn at tpwd.state.tx.us


 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl