Leaf on Rocks

The Japanese Maple is shedding its leaves. A sure sign that our winter is upon us.

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!!) 

Minus Tide

We caught a low tide of -1.2 the other day. There was so much sand to drive on and the beach was swept clean.

The Seagulls and Sanderlings were having a feast on all those critters in the sand that they had access to because the water was so low.
It was a Sand crab buffet!

Dots on Monarch Butterflies

We went to a lecture given by a Cal Poly grad student. She is studying and tagging Monarchs in our area and we went with her one morning as she did a count. Look close and you will see two butterflies in this picture with yellow dots. The yellow tags tell us at what location it was tagged and has other information. There are about half a dozen clustering sites around here with Pismo Beach being the largest. I would love to go with them to do some tagging. It is done in the early morning, the colder the better. There are very long handled butterfly nets and brown paper bags involved.

The students are gathering information on how the individuals in a cluster move about and how far they might go to nectar. We see many Monarchs in our back yard but have so far not found a cluster site on our property. They do love to nectar on our Lantana and I am watching for those tags. If I saw a yellow tagged butterfly in our yard that would mean it had traveled about four miles from the site where it was tagged. We did find a small cluster site about a mile from us that the students had not known about.

The Western Monarchs travel from Washington, Oregon and Nevada and arrive in our area around early October. Some clusters go south as far as San Diego. They do not go down into Mexico. Those are the Eastern Monarchs. The Western Monarchs are here until February or March and then they mate before they start their journey back to the north. It takes them about three generations, each living around 6-8 weeks to get back. They lay their eggs on Milkweed with the first eggs being laid in the central California valley and the Sierra foothills. Then the new generation travels north staying on the western side of the Rockies. An abundance of Milkweed seems to help trigger the laying of more eggs and a new generation to continue on to their summer sites. It is interesting to note that the migration south in the fall is made by one generation and they live for about 6 months. The same butterflies make that whole long trip... they must catch a tail wind!

Monarch numbers are declining. There are good years and bad but over all the numbers are going down. They seem to prefer Eucalyptus trees for clustering in our area, although Pines or Cypress are used too. The Eucalyptus trees bloom in January and February and provide nectar as well as a roosting place. Many people are cutting down the Eucalyptus trees around here. Has that contributed to the decline of the Monarchs? They are not native trees and many groups would like to remove them all.

But that is another story for another time.

Patchy Cat

The day dreaming cat with her little slit eyes.

Leaves for Lunch

We came across a Eucalyptus leaf that had been chewed in this interesting pattern by quite the diligent creature. After some googling around I found information on the Eucalyptus Tortoise  Beetle.
They chew this distinctive semi-circle pattern all around the edge of a leaf.

Seems like they arrived here in California around 2000 from Australia and just chow down on the Eucalyptus leaves but don't really kill the trees.  I will now keep my eyes open for these miniature tortoise like guys.

Watching Woodys

The Acorn Woodpeckers are now part of our daily routine. They are quite tame and don't fly away when we come out the door. In fact, I think they watch for us to come outside because they know we just might put out some sunflower seeds or peanuts. I'd love to see their grainery stash for winter!

They seem to work together against the Scrub Jays to keep all the seeds for themselves. One will get seeds while another chases away Jays. The lookout perches up high on top of the telephone pole. It's quite entertaining to watch.

No fighting... no biting guys. There's enough for everyone!