Sept 16, 2022

Hello Couchiching,

I want to thank you for your participation in the monarch monitoring program this year! Monarchs will be heading South through September and October so you are unlikely to find any eggs or caterpillars at your site but volunteers are welcome to make one more monitoring visit in September. 

It has been an interesting season of monarch monitoring with some sites having very few observations while Grant's Woods had an explosion of monarch activity at its little patch of milkweed. It brings up interesting questions such as "what properties of a milkweed patch attracts butterflies to lay their eggs there" and "what factors impact caterpillar survival". Read on in this newsletter to find some insights into these questions. 



Aiesha

Please submit any outstanding monitoring data by using The Couchiching Conservancy's online form, or by dropping your paper form off at the Grant's Woods office. We are no longer asking volunteers to submit their data directly to Mission Monarch because their form does not include caterpillar instars. Couchiching Conservancy staff will submit the summarized data to Mission Monarch at the end of the season. Thanks.

This study by Hann and Landis (2019) found that monarch butterflies lay more eggs at regenerating milkweed patches. For a few weeks following disturbance (mowing the patch) the milkweed plants had many monarch caterpillars and eggs and very few predators (spiders, ants, and other insects). 

The Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF) is looking for people to help collect Monarch butterfly sightings throughout Ontario this September. Submit your observations of monarch butterflies and roosts on their iNaturalist project page.

Here's a short promo video, and more information about the research. 

If you have questions about using iNaturalist, let me (Aiesha, aiesha@couchconservancy) know and I will be happy to help you out