This Week's Update Includes:

• News: News of the Week
• Monarch Math: How Many Eggs Can a Monarch Lay?
• Conservation: Earth Day and Monarch Habitat
• The Migration: Maps and Journal

"A faded female deposited eggs on the milkweed plants that are just coming up."

Assuming the monarch came from Mexico this spring, she flew more than 2,000 miles to this tiny plant where she laid her tiny eggs. She probably caught a free ride on the strong south winds that accompanied the warm air mass in the east this week.

A Massive Migration!
The same south winds brought a massive influx of immigrant butterflies all the way into Ontario, Canada. People reported hundreds and hundreds of orange and black butterflies. Most were red admiral butterflies. Like monarchs, they winter in the south and migrate north in the spring. Alan Wormington of Point Pelee National Park in Ontario tried to count them:

"I conservatively estimated 4000 for the park, but there could just as easily have been 10 times that many. It would be interesting to know the core source for these massive numbers of Red Admirals. I suspect it is probably the AR/LA area and adjacent sections of TX."

Counting Eggs
Observers were astonished to discover how many eggs monarchs were laying:

"I had just found my first egg, and was counting to see how many I had, when a monarch appeared. She laid 2 more eggs right in front of me. That brought the total to 14, with each egg on a separate plant." Carbondale IL

In Tennessee, seventh graders Rachel and Gwen collected the 16 eggs they found. They were worried how frost might affect the eggs. According to Dr. Lincoln Brower, killing frost is a risk for monarchs in springtime: "When monarch eggs hatch on damaged plants, the larvae can die of starvation."

• How many eggs did Dr. Edson's monarch lay?
• What do the data reveal about what's happening to monarchs right now?

• Please report monarch and milkweed sightings.

		Journal
First Monarch (map | animation | sightings)	First Milkweed (map | animation | sightings)