Day 7: Santa Cruz Overwintering Sites

We started the day early at Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz to join the local folks in the official Thanksgiving monarch count. Martha Nitzberg, a ranger at Natural Bridges, coordinated the effort and we were pleased that Paul Cherubini joined us. We climbed down the boardwalk where at one time 120,000 monarchs created an orange canopy in the eucalyptus trees. But today there were hardly any to be seen. We took a moment to learn the process of how to count: each of us would count the monarchs in each cluster then we would compare numbers and reach a consensus. Loners and flyers would be counted separately. At first we saw only 436 monarchs in 6 small clusters in the middle of the grove facing east. But then some hikers told us about more on the west side of the thicket, where none of us “experts” expected them. Paul explained that the storm on Friday likely blew some of monarchs from their eastern orientation to move to this side to protect themselves from the intense wind. The clusters there were larger and denser. We updated the census to 1,254 monarchs at this site, better than our first numbers, but considerably lower than last year’s count of 3,500. We also learned that because of the storm we might find monarchs in unusual places.

We jumped in our cars and drove to our next stop, Lighthouse Fields. Almost all the monarchs were clustering on a single Monterey Cypress in the center of the grove facing south. We had the incredible good fortune of running into John Dayton, a renowned professor at San Jose State and a monarch specialist who has personally monitored the California overwintering sites for over 20 years. His explanations easily revealed the depth of his knowledge that tapped into our own desire to learn more about these fascinating insects and their behavior. We could talk with him all day, but we had to move forward with the count!

From outside the rope fence, our estimate was 1,700 monarchs. But we had a wide variation in numbers. Martha asked John Dayton for his estimate: 4,000. Then we discovered an explanation for the discrepancy – the storm had moved the monarchs here, too! Under the authority of the uniformed park ranger we hopped the fence and from our improved vantage point we could see several densely packed clusters on the same tree not visible from the outside. Our unofficial count more than doubled. Although the final official numbers for this site are not yet available, everything seems to indicate they will far surpass last year’s 2,607.

We talked to Paul about this interesting increase of monarchs at Lighthouse Fields when most of the oth

er Western sites have declining numbers. Much of the increase could be due to the improving habitat conditions for the area. More trees have been planted offering more wind protection.

We had a fun discovery back at our cars. Paul noticed a monarch caterpillar on a nearby milkweed, and we found two more, an unusual find for so late in the season.

It was time to begin our trip back to the LA area, but we stopped to see one more site. At Moran Lake the monarchs rested on eucalyptus trees in loose clusters in a broad area. The clusters were lower than the previous sites and the grove and canopy was larger with an opening for the morning sun. As much as we wanted to continue participating in the count, we knew we had to leave. What a great morning with fun people to share our love of monarchs!

Day 6: Pacific Grove

We woke up to a very chilly morning with temps barely 50 degrees and walked through Butterfly Grove. It was the morning after the storm. A few monarchs were on the ground, likely downed from the wind and rain, unable to move until they warmed up. Grounded monarchs are in a dangerous position. As a survival mechanism, they will often crawl up a nearby tree or stick a bit off the ground if they can’t fly to protect themselves from predators. But the monarchs we saw today may have been too wet or too cold to even crawl to safety. Fortunately as the sun warmed they were able to fly to the lower branches of the tree to continue sunning.

We found the monarchs in a few small clusters on the north side of the trees. Usually they would line up on the south, but they used the eucalyptus trees for protection from the storm’s winds.

The hot topic of conversation today was the tree pruning at Pacific Grove. We overheard several conversations of deep concern for the monarch’s future at Pacific Grove. We spoke to one docent who was there when the arborist instructed the city pruners. It was his opinion that the arborist primarily wanted to prevent any falling limb danger to neighboring structures. But we think if a monarch specialist had been consulted the impact may have been less. Time will show if the city made a serious mistake or not.

It's likely hard to imagine the importance of the monarch butterfly to Pacific Grove's economy. Known as "Butterfly City," tourists during the overwintering season are a primary revenue source for the area. Signs with monarchs grace the area, everything from the Chamber of Commerce, businesses to local street addresses. It's a haven for monarch lovers to feel at home.

We stopped by the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum that features a permanent monarch exhibit and gift shop. You can just imagine the time (and money) we spent there! We met several people who were very involved in the local movement to protect the monarch butterflies. The tree pruning broke their hearts. But it’s encouraging to talk to people dedicating their time to help preserve monarch butterfly habitats.Then we took a leisurely drive up the coast to Santa Cruz then enjoyed a short walk in the Redwood Forest.

We met Paul Cherubini in person for the first time over dinner and had a most delightful evening! Paul is a walking book of monarch information and always offers an interesting perspective. He often challenges the status quo with his keen observations and meticulous record-keeping and photographs. His love of monarchs runs deep and he helped us understandPhoenix and Arizona as well as the local California counts. Paul helped us better understand the role of autumnal sites in overwintering communities, diapause and reproducing monarchs, new local overwintering sites, and the possible effect of low predators in the larger cienega monarch reproducing sites in Arizona. We also talked with Paul, as we did with David Marriott, about the strange phenomena we experienced at home with a female monarch appearing to be laying eggs on a Desert Milkweed (abdomen pressing against the stem) but no eggs deposited at the site. It seems that a female monarch may have an instinctive response to milkweed that promotes this behavior. Maybe the female was immature, not gravid. Interesting. This is just a small sampling of the monarch conversation we had with Paul. What a great evening!

Day 5: Butterfly Grove Sanctuary Pacific Grove

We arrived after dark last night, so this morning was the first chance we had to explore the sanctuary. A storm was brewing with high winds in the morning and a forecast of 100% chance of rain in the afternoon. With temps at 60 degrees we weren't sure we would see many monarchs. We walked over to the grove and found dozens of monarchs battling the winds, clustering and unclustering on the eucalyptus trees. Like everywhere else in California, the numbers of monarchs is way down. In 1997 the Butterfly Grove Sanctuary was a winter home to 45,000 monarchs and by 2008 the number had dwindled to 17,866. The count this year is a startling 933. Percentagewise this monarch haven has suffered a more pronounced decline than other California overwintering sites.

A few years ago a tree branch in the grove fell on a visitor, costing the city dearly. To prevent any further losses, last September the city of Pacific Grove severely pruned some of the trees in the sanctuary. At this time it is unknown how much this has contributed to the decline of monarchs, but it is a common topic of discussion in the grove.

In the afternoon we were very fortunate to visit Helen Johnson, a key contributor to the Monarch Alert program in California. Because of Helen's extensive contacts around the California monarch community and beyond she is able to inspire and link people together who would otherwise have remained strangers. She is a master monarch facilitator who has contributed greatly to the cause. Her energy, enthusiasm, and support (both encouragement and financial) are a marvel to behold.



Bob's photo note: I got bored with shooting stationary monarchs, whether roosting, nectaring or drinking the morning dew, so I tried some on-the-wing action shots. It's pretty hard to get a decent picture of a tiny bug, moving fast, far away, and in poor light. At least the strong wind kept them together in the lee of the tree so I didn't have to run around chasing them. Despite that and my inexperience, I succeeded in capturing the collage of images at the top. I'll post some more when I get some good ones.

Day 4: Ellwood Sites, Pismo Beach

Today we returned to the Ellwood Main site armed with maps and GPS coordinates of the aggregation sites in Ellwood North, West and Central. While we didn't find any blue tagged monarchs, we were relieved to see more activity. Altogether we saw 156 monarch flyers in the area during the 90 minutes we were walking the area. The monarchs were active and moving about, often stopping to sip the morning dew. We saw the largest number of monarchs in the Sandpiper Golf Course area of the preserve. While the number of flyers made it harder to search for blue tags than if they were clustering, it was comforting to know the monarchs numbers are larger than we originally thought.

We knew we had a long drive ahead of us so we began our trip North. As we were driving on Hwy 101 we saw a monarch flying East to West 7 miles West of Gaviota around noon. Then two minutes later we spotted another monarch 1/2 mile South of exit 128 followed by seeing two more monarchs flying again East to West at exit 128. By 12:05 another monarch sped by near the Gaviota sign. We stopped at the "Gaviota Rest Area" at 12:14 when the sixth monarch sped by. Amazing sight! We were both surprised to see so much activity in such a narrow time-frame. We saw the last flying monarch of the day at 2PM on Hwy 1, 2.5 miles South of Oceana. Again the flight had an East to West trajectory at a good clip.

We stopped at Oceana Campground, the site of just over 10,000 monarchs back in 2002. The annual count last week noted zero monarchs this year. Bob and I also found this to be true. So we drove up the road to the North Beach Campground at Pismo Beach. Pismo is heralded as one of the largest monarch sanctuaries of the area with a high of 100,000 monarchs in 1997 that dropped over the decade to 23,050 in 2008. This year's count was only 6,711 monarchs, a significant decline and a reflection of the lower numbers seen up and down the coast this winter. Despite temperatures of 60 degrees, a few monarchs were fluttering about, but most were in dense but small clusters. A few small telescopes were set up to see the monarchs up close and docents were available for information. No blue tags here that we could see. Interestingly they still have the old migration maps up that shows no monarch activity in Arizona with an arrow over the top part of our state going to California. Given Chris Kline's results with the Southwest Monarch Study we know this isn't the case. But change is slow. Sometimes, so is openness to change.

Day 3: Ellwood Main

Today we visited Ellwood Main in Goleta, just West of Santa Barbara. We were both absolutely stunned at the drastically lower numbers of monarchs there. We visited this site last January when a Southwest Monarch Study blue tagged monarch was seen here. In comparison, today we found only about 30% of the monarchs we saw then. Yet the monarchs we did see were beautiful! The clusters were small and since it is still early in the season and warm it was easy to see individual monarchs as they hang in the trees.

It's very dry here and maybe that is normal for November. We noticed that the creek that ran through the area last January was bone dry.

We returned to Ellwood Main in the late afternoon to again look for blue tags. Since it was a warm, sunny day many monarchs were flying, but now that the sun was setting they would return to roost. We kept searching with binoculars and Bob's camera to zoom in on the limited clusters.

We walked to the North Ellwood sanctuary and found five monarchs flying into the grove one at a time less than 30 minutes before sunset. Monarchs can form aggregation clusters in these nearby areas during the fall. In upcoming weeks when it gets cold the monarchs move to the main clustering area usually by late December. So possibly monarchs are clustering in the known aggregation sites in the area and there are more here than what we've seen.

This evening we talked to Paul Cherubini who explained the monarch movements in the atumnal sites. We are very grateful that he emailed us a map with the most common fall cluster sites in the Ellwood area. Tomorrow we will look at these areas before driving north to Pismo Beach then on to Pacific Grove.

Day 2: Huntington Beach Monarch Sites

Reading the monarch list-serves we always see Leslie Gilson's name pop up. Today was the lucky day we planned to meet her. Leslie is the remarkable lady who transformed a city park that lost its monarch population ten years ago to one today where monarchs flourish.

The moment we stepped out of the car the fluttering orange welcome committee guided us to the park. (I guess this is the female perspective...Bob said they dive bombed us!) All I know is this moment is forever etched in memory. All I could hear them say, "Come, come and see this wonderful place!"

Leslie greeted us with arms full of photo posters offering a historical perspective of her story woven into the history of Norma Gibbs Park, better known in the area as the Butterfly Park. Her motto of "Preserve - Protect - Manage" laid the framework and fueled her perseverance to once again create a habitat where monarchs not only survive, but thrive. Leslie's contagious enthusiasm for this project taps into the reservoir of hope to save the monarchs in the area and has excited over 150 people of all ages to volunteer to restore the area in different ways -- from a graffiti removal squad to an Eagle Scout flower bed and tree planting project.

The reforestation began in 2007 with a presentation by Leslie to the City Council. She hired a company using innovative science and the latest technology to address the challenging conservation problem of the demise of the Monarch Butterfly overwintering site and she looked for a plan for future planting of trees, milkweed and habitat growth. With the help of the city, a group of over 150 community members planted over 700 plants on Arbor Day, April 19, 2008 and a core group of citizens was created to Preserve, Protect and Manage the site. Leslie tapped into local realtors to sponsor Monarch Madness. Where else could you buy monarch caterpillars (for fundraising), see a puppet show, butterfly walk, and enjoy bean bag toss games and treasure hunts seeking different elements of the monarch habitat? What a remarkable transformation! You can even sponsor a new tree for the area.

Leslie told us that the the butterfly garden is often called the Healing Park. As Bob and I walked through the area we could easily see why. Mothers walked with their children in arm and in strollers looking for caterpillars on the plants or the many chrysalises hanging on the wall. We saw monarchs in every stage of their life cycle there! Neighbors peeked over the fence to chat with Leslie and we were able to spread the word to look for the blue tags of the Southwest Monarch Study since many of the butterflies fly over the fence to visit the water features available in nearby yards. We met a friendly group of retired dog-lovers meeting in the park with the owners talking to us about their love of the park (and of Leslie, too!) while dogs basked belly up in the sun. How could anyone have any anxiety with the peace, calm and serenity here?

While only a former overwintering site, the park now has year-round monarchs. Bob and I estimated at least 175 monarchs graced the area while we were there. In December of last year Leslie said there was a cluster of 8 overwintering in one of the trees and she is hoping they cluster again. But the temperatures are so warm this November they seem to be happy nectaring (and reproducing!) for the moment. Last year the big find was a monarch tagged by David Marriott at Camp Pendleton arriving at the park! So maybe one of the Southwest Monarch Study tagged monarchs will go to Camp Pendleton again then wing its way to this monarch oasis, too!

After lunch, Leslie joined us to visit some of the smaller overwintering sites in the Huntington Beach area. First we visited the Gothard Senior Site. In 1997 it was home to 3,000 overwintering monarchs but by last year the monarch count was zero. While labeled the Senior Center site, it is really a Disc Golf course complete with Pro Shop. Imagine Leslie, Bob and me running up to all the players (young men mind you) asking if they see any monarchs -- oh, those poor people! But it paid off when they showed us where they spotted monarchs in the nearby eucalyptus trees! All in all we spotted 4 together and there were likely more. This is quite hopeful after none were spotted a year ago. Oh, remember how I mentioned that Leslie's restoration work is well known? Well, the Disc Golf players urged us to visit the "Butterfly Park" to see the monarchs. What a thrill to tell them that Leslie was its creator! Did you know there is even a monarch disc for Disc Golf? So named because of an aerodynamic grove on its edge. The things we learn!

Then we drove across the street to the amphitheater by the city library. In 1997 this area hosted 3,800 monarchs but by last year only were 25 spotted. As we descended the hill into the eucalyptus forest, all I could think was this looked like a monarch sanctuary. It didn't take too long before the first monarch glided through the air searching for a place in the sun to bask a while. We took our time walking through the secret tree passages and sometimes just lying on the benches of the amphitheater gazing skyward. The three of us counted a total of 17 monarchs.

I'm a visual person, so here is a chart of our monarch sightings and comparisons to the 2008 counts for the sites we visited:This blog doesn't do the day justice -- especially in regards to Leslie, an incredible woman. What I love about this trip is not only walking the monarch trail on their California journey, but hearing the stories of people who have a similar love, a passion, for protecting, loving and savoring the remarkable monarch butterfly.

Day 1: Camp Pendelton and San Clemente

What a great day to begin our tour of the monarch overwintering sites in California! We woke to a beautiful sunny day -- blue skies with not a cloud to be seen and temperatures in the mid-60s. After a quick walk to the beach, Bob and I drove to the Monarch Program facility to meet with David Marriott, Ph.D., Leana and Bill. David showed us the classroom area and his butterfly and insect specimens. We also toured the butterfly vivarium enjoying the monarchs, red admirals, dogfaces and mourning cloaks.

Then it was time to climb into Bill's car for the drive to visit some of the monarch overwintering sites in the area. David recently completed a study of the monarch butterfly overwintering habitat at Camp Pendelton. He shared information about his observations and very patiently answered our many questions.

Monarchs love to roost in Eucalyptus Trees in southern California. Today we watched them fly and tried to follow them to the trees to find other monarchs. David and Leana mentioned that usually they would find only a few monarchs together rather than the large clusters further north. They also said that when there are only males (or 90% males), the roost is likely an autumnal site. A true overwintering site has both male and female monarchs.

The primary nectar source for the overwintering monarchs is the flower of the Eucalyptus Trees that blooms throughout the time the monarchs are there. The trees provide protection from wind and rain with a food source nearby. Despite this ideal arrangement, the monarch population is dwindling in Southern California. The possible reasons are too numerous to list here, but as an example David shared the humidity differences this year compared to one year ago. In 2008 the humidity was 65%. Today it was 25%. The dryer climate and less frequent rains adversely affects the habitat of trees and plants in the area.

The numbers of monarchs at the sites we visited were strikingly less than last year. The counts as of today are:

Although David tried, we were not able to access the San Onofre Creek Site at Camp Pendleton due to security issues. This was the place where two blue Southwest Monarch Study tags were spotted last year. But David, Leana and Bill all promised to look closely for them when they are able to gain entry in the future.

When we returned to the Monarch Program facility David showed us how to test a monarch for O. E. using clear scotch tape and a microscope. Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) is an protozoan parasite that can infect monarch and queen butterflies. OE must live within a host (in this case a monarch) to grow and multiply. David found in the monarchs he tested at Camp Pendleton that the O.E. infection rate starts low at the beginning of the overwintering season, peaks, then declines at the end of the season.

While we didn't spot any blue-tagged monarchs today, it was still a great day!