Backyard Butterflies

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/monarch-butterfly-mexico-migration-tracking-smartphone-9.7126224

Interesting article , but actually this sentence surprise me . Never heard of this before . Now I need to look this up .

“ Many of the animals in the El Rosario sanctuary — including coyotes, armadillos, opossums, squirrels, rabbits and most birds — flee the area when the monarchs arrive, Cruz Guzmán added.”

Unlocking the monarch's migration secrets in Mexico's butterfly empire | CBC News A total of 160 monarchs across Mexico’s six butterfly sanctuaries have been tagged with new transmitters that will provide the most detailed look to date at the first leg of the the insects' migration back north.

Here’s a butterfly flying across the Gulf of America . It’s actually a captive bred monarch raised in doors .

A radio tagged Monarch was at this location in Greenfield about 21 hours ago .

More radio tagged fun . This butterfly is a reared outside Monarch . It seem to have found its direction . Had maybe a slow start .

I’m finding the radio tagged Monarch migration very interesting . Found a group of radio tagged Monarchs released near the university of Guelph where the monarchs had been raised indoors and out doors with a few wild caught monarchs also tagged . These monarchs seem to be just flying randomly which seems to support the experiments with captive raised monarchs and the flight simulator . Some though seem to find their direction and migrate as the wild caught ones . Some of these are newly released . This batch of monarchs will be very interesting to watch !

There are some Monarchs that were collected as eggs or 1st instar and raised inside that were tagged with the radio tags . This is one of them . It has a long note about it .

Hey , down load the Monarch project app and watch the fall migration

I find a preying mantis the other day . Abdomen turned brown . I just happened to be watching it and larva came out . Looks like it had been parasitoid

Bugfest is this Sunday ! I’ll be there at the Monarch tagging station with Monarchs and some friends .

Got some extra pipevine swallowtail caterpillars if anyone is interested in raising a few ! Must have the host plant .