Midcoast Monarchs
Harlen
along the Texas midcoast back on the 24th of Oct,
the day or two after the passage of a front.
Best counts:
Oct 24th ... 9:30 a.m., 30 min. total was 95, best 5 min. total 23
Oct 28th ... 9:30 a.m., 30 min. total was 297, best 5 min. total 58
... 12:20 p.m., 30 min. total was 84, best 5 min. total 22
Oct 29th ... 9:15 a.m., 30 min. total was 153, best 5 min. total 45
On other days there are a few early in the morning before
the E or SE begins to blow. On the days above, we saw
monarchs in many location around town. Everything was
moving between SW and WSW depending on the breeze.
The counting location was the same each day, on the north
approach peninsula to the Lavaca Bay Causeway just as
they came off from in front of Alcoa and crossed TX 35 to
go on across Lavaca Bay alongside the causeway heading
towards the north side of Port Lavaca or just north of it.
Harlen
Harlen
mostly males, but a few females have loaded the curassavica with eggs.
Many coupled pairs were waiting along the edge of the the grass along
the peninsula so that early in the morning or when the couple detatched
they could scoot out across the bay. There were about fifteen
locations where clusters/roosts were forming up at sundown on the 21st,
24th, 28th, and 29th. and days in between. They like to spend the
evening in false-willow trees, some other trees along the marsh, and
brush that provides wind protection. The 28th we had five coupled
pairs that had found a place for the night and at sundown three more
were still pulling a female along the peninsula. One recomendation I
have for someone that might want to follow along with the coastal
monarchs, find one of their crossing points, stay with it, and learn to
stay the morning hours unless a fronts brings in a wind from between
the N to W to SW and forget that day job from Oct 15th thru Nov 15th.
and adjust when necessary.
http://mcmc.homestead.com/oct23clusters.html
Harlen Aschen
Paul Cherubini
> There were about fifteen
> locations where clusters/roosts were forming up at
> sundown on the 21st, 24th, 28th, and 29th. and days
> in between. They like to spend the
> evening in false-willow trees, some other trees along
> the marsh, and brush that provides wind protection.
Harlen, do the golf courses in your coastal region have
tall trees planted along the fairways? In the upper
Midwest and along the California coast I commonly find
hundreds to thousands of monarchs roosting in golf
course trees Sometimes in tall cemetery trees too
like the big cemetery in Ballinger, TX, south of Abilene.
Paul Cherubini
Harlen
The golf courses along this part of the Gulf Coast are new
and use exisitng trees if they can. The only two that I know
anything of are the Port Lavaca course which has very few
trees and Placios which also has very trees. They don't plant
many because the courses are new and trees that grow to any
height will get denuded or will get taken down by hurricanes.
Rockport's golfculb is fairly new, just now getting its trees going.
A bit farther inland, 30 to 45 miles, they will use the exiting
trees along the rivers and plan their golf courses around the
bends in rivers and use the existing trees (usually pecan, hickory,
elm, oak, cypress, and others in their layout) in their layouts.
There are thousands of square miles of native trees (some
mentioned) that live along each creek, each bayo, each river
that dumps into the bays. There have been drainage and irrigation
ditches that are lined with trees. Each pasture and each field has
its fence defined by a fence row of tall hackberries, oaks, elms,
and oaks. The closer you get to the bays the shorter the trees
get but the more dense they seem to get. The last few mile
to the Gulf the tree is the Coastal Oak that will grow in singles
or in large mottes covering a hundred acers and only wild hogs
can get thru. Birders have found large roosts/clusters of monarchs
in late December in mottes of trees surrounded by marsh grasses
possibly a few palm trees that probably weren't natural. There is
a great deal of brushy stands of smaller thick trees like the false
willow and now the chinese tallow is getting loose. They even like
to use the taller of the clumps of coastal grasses for protecion from
the wind. A hundred years ago there were few tree as this area
was the gulf coast grass plains. The Cowboys would ride for an
hour to find a tree big enough for shade when they had their lunch.
Only waterways cutting to the estuaries had trees on both sides
down to the bays. Victoria has the best and tallest trees in their
Riverside golf course, but they seldom get many monarchs. The
monarchs in the coastal flyway seem to stay withing sight of the
bays ... at least no farther than five miles away that we can find.