Though it’s nearly mid October I saw monarch butterflies migrating through Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday October 10 & 11. Their timing seems late, but they were given a boost by August-like weather early this month.
You can follow their progress across the U.S. on Journey North’s monarch butterfly blog where you’ll find:
- The long awaited peak migration has come.
- Monarchs streamed across Kansas and Oklahoma on 5 October, creating a butterfly front reported with video in the Washington Post.
- There was an amazing roost of 30,000 monarchs in Wiley, Colorado on 30 Sept.
- See the Fall 2019 monarch sightings map. Where are they now?
Today’s rain will put a damper on monarch migration in Pittsburgh but we can watch from afar as the butterflies make their way to Mexico.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)
I had a monarch in my Squirrel Hill garden near CMU yesterday afternoon around 3:45.
I’ve seen more here in central Illinois this year than I have for a long time. And, my big excitement… I was out trimming some trees a couple weeks ago, and by the grace of god I happened to see a monarch cocoon on a branch. I kept an eye on it, and within a week’s time, I got to see that the butterfly had come out of the cocoon and was resting on the branch; its white cocoon was still kind of (damp?) as it was still on the branch but was waving in the breeze! I’d never seen that before – I felt so honored and happy! <3
Saw on monarch headed southwest along the river on First Ave in Brackenridge at 1:09 PM Monday (10/14).