Seeking Red Admiral and Painted Lady Sightings

[Royce J Bitzer]

Leps-L members,

This message is to announce the 2006 season of the Vanessa Migration 
Project.  In a way similar to Journey North's Monarch tracking, we are 
mapping seasonal distribution and migration of four Vanessa butterflies in 
North America:

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)
American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis)
West Coast Lady (Vanessa annabella)

1.  We are asking observers to report the first date when you see (or have 
seen) any of these butterflies in your area, and the numbers seen that day.

2.  If there are noticeable directional migrations of these species this 
year, we would appreciate your reports of these migrations.

3.  We are also mapping the presence or abundance of these butterflies 
later in the season, and we encourage multiple observations from the same 
region.

Please include your full name, e-mail address, the location from which you 
observed, and the date or dates when you see these butterflies.  For 
evident directional migrations, please include also the direction toward 
which they seem to be moving.  A rough estimate of how frequently they are 
passing through (for example, 10 butterflies over 20 minutes) would also be 
helpful, as would notes on temperature, wind speed and direction, and type 
and extent of cloud cover.

For more information about this project and how to report your 
observations, see the Red Admiral and Painted Lady Research Site

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mariposa/homepage.html

Once there, select the links, "Help Track the 2006 North American 
Migration" and "How to Report Your Observations."  We are now taking 
observations either directly via e-mail (mariposa at iastate.edu) or through 
our reporting form and database.

We now have an interactive map that opens from the map images on our home 
page, as well as complete instructions for viewing and working with the map 
("How to Use Our Interactive Map").

If you have observations from previous years that you would like to share, 
please feel free to send these to us also.  We will add them to our 
database and interactive map.

Many thanks to all of you who sent in or forwarded observations last 
year!  Because of the extensive Painted Lady migrations in the western U. 
S. and southwestern Canada, 2005 was our best year yet, and we received and 
mapped over 400 observations.

So we would appreciate it very much if you could monitor Red Admirals and 
Painted Ladies this year!  Or please pass this message on to others whom 
you think might be interested in this project.

Thank you,


Royce J. Bitzer
mariposa at iastate.edu

The Red Admiral and Painted Lady Research Site
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mariposa/homepage.html
Territorial behavior and migration of Vanessa butterflies 
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