[Pollinator] Butterflies all aflutter along East Bay shore

[Scott Black]

Butterflies all aflutter along East Bay shore


http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_19417494

 

By Matthew Artz
<mailto:martz at bayareanewsgroup.com?subject=San%20Jose%20Mercury%20News:%20Bu
tterflies%20all%20aflutter%20along%20East%20Bay%20shore> 
The Argus 

Posted: 11/27/2011 12:00:00 AM PST

Updated: 11/27/2011 04:07:13 AM PST 







FREMONT -- Unlike recent years, Christina Garcia needed a pen, paper and a
fair amount of time Friday to count all the monarch butterflies dangling in
clumps high atop the eucalyptus trees at Fremont's Ardenwood Historic Farm.

Garcia, a naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District, counted 4,176
butterflies -- the most since 1998 and way more than the 224 she counted
last year.

"It's great to see so many of them," she said. "We thought they were going
to keep dropping in numbers and maybe not come at all."

The butterflies, which spend their winters along the Central and Southern
California coast, also can be seen at San Leandro's Monarch Bay Golf Course
and for the first time since 2004, at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline in
Richmond.

The Xerces Society, a butterfly conservation group, began the Thanksgiving
week butterfly count more than a decade ago to monitor the dramatic decline
of monarchs wintering in the state. Counters last year spotted 129,460
butterflies, down from nearly 400,000 a decade earlier.

Garcia said this year's resurgence might be due to the especially wet
spring. Late rain is good for the milkweed plant, which serves both as the
monarch's egg repository and a major food source. 

Most monarchs live less than six weeks, first as caterpillars chomping on
milkweed and later as butterflies that mate and produce hundreds of eggs. 

But the current crop of monarchs lead a very different life. 

Instead of rushing to mate, they expend their energy flying at speeds as
high as 25 miles per hour to the same select shoreline locales where they'll
live for months before mating in February.

Much of their winter is spent huddled in trees with their wings overlapping
like shingles to protect them from wind and rain. But when the sun comes
out, they'll cascade down toward the ground foraging for nectar.

"It's awesome," Garcia said. "You can even hear their wings fluttering."

This is the first year that visitors to Ardenwood are allowed to visit the
butterfly grove unattended. The district also runs weekend butterfly walks
throughout December and January. The park is located at 34600 Ardenwood
Blvd., Fremont. For more information, visit www.ebparks.org/parks/ardenwood
or call 510-544-2797.

Contact Matthew Artz at 510-353-7002 or martz at bayareanewsgroup.com. Visit
his blog at www.ibabuzz.com/tricitybeat.

 

 

 

_______

 

Scott Hoffman Black

Executive Director

     The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Chair

     IUCN Butterfly Specialist Group

 

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

1971 - 2011: Forty Years of Conservation!

 

We have moved!

628 NE Broadway, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97232, USA

 <https://webmail.integra.net/src/compose.php?send_to=sblack%40xerces.org>
sblack at xerces.org

Tel: (503) 232-6639 ext. 101

Toll free: 1-855-232-6639 ext. 101

Cell: (503) 449-3792

 

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation is an international
nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of
invertebrates and their habitat.

 

To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work, please
visit  <http://www.xerces.org> www.xerces.org.

 

NEW BOOK NOW AVAILABLE:

 
<http://www.xerces.org/announcing-the-publication-of-attracting-native-polli
nators/> Attracting Native Pollinators. Protecting North America's Bees and
Butterflies

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20111127/23af7be7/attachment.html>