Waking up Butterflies

As the sun came up over the trees we went down to Halcyon to join a group from Cal Poly to tag Monarch Butterflies.

Capturing the clustering butterflies involved a very long pole and a very large net. When the branch was tapped the resting butterflies fell into the net.

This must be done while the temperatures are cold enough that they don't want to fly.

They were then transferred into brown grocery bags.

Tags with a unique number, color code and phone number were attached to the underside of their right lower wing.

All this information as well as identifying it as male or female was recorded on a log sheet. We caught some that had been tagged a month ago at a different site. They already had a different color tag or mark. This confirms that they move about within the different sites here in our area.

After they were tagged, we put them back into a second brown grocery bag and when it warmed up enough the bags were propped open so they could fly away. You can see the tag on the lower butterfly.

By 10 AM we had tagged over 2000 Monarchs. They were very much ready to get out of the bags and be on about their business!

We thank the Cal Poly group for letting us join them. It was a wonderful learning experience. To learn more check here: http://monarchalert.calpoly.edu/

What a fun morning... (all except the part of getting up at o' dark thirty!!)