[Leps-l] [leps-talk] Monarch Armageddon

[Fred Heath]

Dear Joe,
	Although I haven't observed large numbers of monarchs gathering on
route south like they do on the barrier beaches of Long Island, on the West
Coast they sometimes gather for many weeks in places where the micro-climate
is good early in the fall before heading to their eventual wintering groves
which may be nearby. 
	An example is at the mouth of Sycamore Canyon in the Santa Monica
Mountains in Ventura County, CA. They start gathering here in late September
and can number in the hundreds, roosting in the Sycamores just in from the
ocean. In November as the leaves fall off the trees, no longer providing
shelter, the butterflies head to Eucalyptus (which are not deciduous) groves
on the coast which have the right micro-climate through the winter.
------Best regards, Fred     

-----Original Message-----
From: leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Kunkel
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 11:29 AM
To: Paul Cherubini
Cc: Leps List
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.jp
> g
> 
> Paul Cherubini
> El Dorado, Calif.
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