Radio-tagged Monarch butterflies
news.vt.edu
news.vt.edu
That confirms that we are in good locations along normal flyways. My own property includes lots of antelope-horn milkweed and a couple other milkweeds. I found monarch caterpillars in my garden last week. With the recent rains breaking the summer drought I have so much in bloom again - asters, sunflowers, milkweed, numerous grasses, coreopsis, native onions, salvia, sage, dalea, etc. My place is humming with bees and wasps and the birds cast their tunes upon the winds.
For the first time since we moved here more than 25 years ago I had a meadowlark on my place and I was able to grab photos. It's a common bird where I grew up but though their range extends to this part of Texas, I had never seen one until late last week. Along with all the other birds passing through, that meadowlark was like encountering an old friend. I recognized the call and walked the place until I found the bird. As a kid I used to walk the pastures imitating the meadowlark calls, trying to sow confusion amongst their ranks, or maybe to let them know I might be one of the good guys. Who really knows?
I normally go outside every morning to identify birds using Merlin. For a couple weeks now, as I sit and listen to the world going by, monarchs and other butterflies have been migrating past. They are generally flying above treetop level hugging the treetops and terrain. As I drove north yesterday on a nice two hour trip there was a steady stream of butterflies. Most were traveling a few feet higher than an automobile as they crossed the road though some were skimming the ground and undoubtedly tempting fate. Makes me wonder how many have tags or stickers and of those, how many are scattered in pieces along the highway after dipping a bit too low to the ground.
Thanks for this article. I'm passing this around so that others can see where they are positioned on the flyway.
It's really hard to describe how exciting it was to hear that meadowlark out on land that I have been restoring as native prairie. When something like that bird appears after being here for more than 25 years without seeing a single one it feels like validation of my efforts. To paraphrase a movie - "If you unbuild it they will come". I've been unbuilding things across the landscape to make this place more attractive to all the things that should be here. It's pretty great.
The wife planted one this year. (Registered, got a little placard to place on a stake.)
We saw a dozen or so cocoons appear around her garden—on plants, on the trim of our house. And then we saw them empty out. The skies too around the neighborhood were frequented by monarchs last month—we'd see them all the time.
Funny how you start to notice a thing (that had always been there to some degree or another) once you start to invest some time and interest in it.
Your wife started a lot like several of my relatives, by planting a pollinator garden and registering it. I think projects like that give people a reason to engage in outdoor activities and to break the connection to the living room couch or the gamer chair. This is something that all ages can really get involved with and learn from.
I have seen so many photo updates of caterpillars metamorphosing and finally launching. It is pretty awesome to see how a fat, tubular bug stuffed with plant material can dissolve into a bug soup and once the components settle out it will have added wings to a much improved tubular frame and only needs a few minutes to figure out how to turn those flappers into forward motion.
I agree that this becomes a real eye-opening exercise once you discover this in your own garden. There are so many things that I have been able to enjoy since beginning to reclaim my place by eliminating all the non-native plants that were introduced by previous owners. I still have a long way to go with a couple of the more invasive species of grass but I know that I will get there. I have a rototiller and Amazon, Fedex, and UPS bring new cardboard for weed block on a schedule that is disturbingly regular. Every new season brings another species that I haven't seen earlier into camera range. I'm feeling like the bugs and other animals see me as a normal part of the landscape that offers no threat to them now. That's the best feeling. Just like them, I belong there.
https://celltracktech.com/pages/blumorpho
https://monarchresearch.org/news-and-events/monarch-research...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/track-monarch-b...
https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/21/pacific-northwest-mon...
A little pdf guide: https://westernmonarchcount.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/M...
Looks like there is an app you can download too that can do stuff like scanning for tags nearby.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/project-monarch-science/id6460...
Having said that, the claim is also that these tags report temperature as well — but there is a field (personalized name) that could be used to transport that information. In any case, it is an impressively small tracker!
I’m on the monarch migration path and had wild milkweeds with monarch butterflies for a few years but the last 2-3 years oleander aphids exploded in population and I’ve seen a single caterpillar since.
Are there ways to mitigate that while not killing the monarchs or am I just shit out of luck?
Has anyone gone down to their nesting location in Mexico? It's on my bucket list but I hear that as their numbers dwindle, it's a harder thing to experience.
Bet they are still pissed with the extra workout though haha