[Leps-l] Bite vs Bight

[Michael Gochfeld]

I have something really important I should be doing, but after Sandy there is an increasing tendency to refer to the "New York Bite" instead of "Bight"  to the point where students question the origin of the term. Students assure me that a giant took a Bite out of the East Coast, hence the name. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Bight

Although wikipedia spells it correctly and illustrates it prettily, the definition of "bight" (well-known to sailors and boy scouts) is 

1. The middle or slack part of an extended rope

2. A bend or curve, especially in a shoreline. b. A wide bay formed by such a bend or curve.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Kunkel" <joe at bio.umass.edu>
To: "Paul Cherubini" <monarch at saber.net>
Cc: "Leps List" <leps-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 1:29:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Leps-l] [leps-talk] Monarch Armageddon

Excuse me if I am reinventing the wheel but I had a neat experience last fall.  I was familiar with the rather random appearance and northerly monarch migration on the East Coast and then the rather directed southerly migration in the fall and some of the cuing up at a coastal site like Fire Island New York in which you saw bunches of adults who seemed to be cuing waiting to start their next big obstacle, the NY Bite.   I thought these aggregations were associated with a geographic obstacle.

Last fall, Sept 1, we were having a picnic on our property adjacent to the Scarborough Marsh in Maine and looking up from our picnic table toward evening I saw across the street in a tall tree 4 or 5 monarchs flitting about.  Taking out my binocs I saw that they were members of a cluster of monarchs hanging there in several bunches that looked to be 50-100 in total.  This was my first such observation of such a large cluster on a coastal feature that I did not feel had much of an obstacle quality.

Is such non-terminal clustering behavior known to occur in both the East and West Coast southerly migration?

Do the West Coast terminal migration sites function also as intermediate cluster sites earlier in the fall?

Sorry if this is general knowledge.  I just retired from UMass Amherst after 42 years and now have time to think about things that Lincoln Brower had shared with us decades ago.

Joe

-·.  .· ·.  .><((((º>·.  .· ·.  .><((((º>·.  .· ·.  .><((((º> .··.· >=-       =º}}}}}><
Joseph G. Kunkel, Research Professor
Center for Land-Sea Interactions
Marine Science Center
University of New England
11 Hills Beach Road
Biddeford ME 04005
joe at bio.umass.edu






On Feb 13, 2013, at 1:56 PM, Paul Cherubini wrote:

> On Feb 13, 2013, at 9:00 AM, Chuck Vaughn wrote:
> 
>> I remember Paul has documented that a small number of
>> west coast Monarchs overwinter in eucalyptus trees at
>> Sky West golf coarse in Hayward.
> 
> Yep and I've been gradually accumulating videos of monarchs
> overwintering in planted stands of eucalyptus or pine trees
> on golf courses, cemeteries and city parks in the ultra urbanized
> areas of California.  Examples:
> 
> San Leandro Marina Golf Course Nov. 15, 2011:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77NIWVT9fHA
> 
> Chuck Corica Golf Course Dec. 18, 2011:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdLm-Gr5A9E
> 
> New Park Mall, Newark, Calif. Dec. 25, 2011:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KyPnYopCnY
> 
> Albany Hill, Albany, Calif. Dec. 25, 2011:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdtARyqj9xc
> 
> Morro Bay Golf Course Feb. 5, 2012:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX70cjtX29k
> 
> A cemetery in San Luis Obispo Feb 4, 2012
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrEBTFAlEdw
> 
>> It seems to me that the Monarch migration, instead of being
>> a fragile phenomenon, must be a robust phenomenon or
>> else it wouldn't have survived for so long.
> 
> Yep, just look at what happened in Australia,
> New Zealand, Spain and Portugal in the late 1800's.
> Humans inadvertently (via the emerging steam ship
> industry) introduced milkweeds from places like South 
> Africa and these milkweeds flourished along roadsides 
> and on farmland.  Then at the same time humans inadvertently 
> introduced very small numbers of monarchs from North America. 
> Then almost overnight the monarch migration and overwintering
> phenomenon sprang up in multiple areas of those countries 
> and the butterflies overwinter in city parks, cemeteries, clumps
> of trees on farmland, etc. just as they do in California: 
> http://www.monarch.org.nz/monarch/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/photo1.jpg
> 
> Paul Cherubini
> El Dorado, Calif.
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