Never be late for dinner or it might be all gone.

Take the case of the Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifola, that we planted last April for the monarchs.  Monarchs seem to favor Tithonia more than any other nectar source in our pollinator garden. Second choice: the butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii.

May, June, July, and August came and went. The invited (and expected) guests were a "no show."  Didn't they make reservations? Or did they forget?

The Tithonia drew honey bees, long-horned bees, syrphid flies, a praying mantis, and assorted butterflies. No monarchs.

In September, entomologist David James of Washington State University, who studies migratory monarchs, announced the monarchs are on their way from the Pacific Northwest to their overwintering sites along coastal California. "They're coming," he said. 

Finally, on Sept. 16, a single monarch glided in, sipped some nectar on the Buddleia for a few seconds and left. Another monarch stopped by on Sept. 26, nectared on the Tithonia for a couple of seconds and vanished.

Where are all the dinner guests?

Finally, at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 3, a male monarch arrived for dinner. And what a 12-course dinner it was on the Tithonia's remaining 12 flowers. He paused once to sample nectar from the Buddleia, but he obviously preferred the Tithonia.

Frankly, it's not been a good year for monarchs in our pollinator garden. Monarchs totally ignored the milkweed, their host plant, and almost disregarded the nectar sources. In comparison, back in 2016, monarchs laid about 300 eggs on our milkweed. In the migratory season, it was not uncommon to see seven monarchs in our garden at one time.

If any more monarchs arrive, they'll not get much Tithonia or Buddleia to fuel their flight to the overwintering sites. They'll have to settle for what's left of the nectar sources: African blue basil, catmint, lion's tail, Mexican petunia, and honeysuckle. 

We're just glad one dinner guest showed up, although he was almost too late for dinner.

All year long, we've been waiting for those majestic monarchs to visit our pollinator garden in Vacaville, as they have in the past 10 years or so. One year (2020), they deposited more than 300 eggs on our milkweed.

But this year?

Zero. Zilch. Nada. 

Where are you?

Dawn. Noon. Dusk. 

Where are you?

Nothing has fluttered in and out except the Western tiger swallowtails, Gulf Fritillaries, fiery and common-checkered skippers, cabbage whites, buckeyes, mourning cloaks, and gray hairstreaks.

The milkweed grew, blossomed and went to seed. Ditto the Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifola). But the patch of Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittoniana) is thriving. The plant is a plucky perennial with purple, petunia-like flowers.

Purple, the color of royalty...a place where a monarch can reign supreme.

And that's exactly what happened today in the petunia patch at 3 p.m. A monarch fluttered in and sipped a little nectar. I almost missed it, as I was observing the Gulf Fritillary activity around the passionflower vine--the males chasing the females, the females laying eggs on the tendrils and leaves, and caterpillars munching the leaves.

The monarch didn't stay long, and I was too far way to move closer, but the Nikon Z-7 with its 105mm macro lens and its 45.7 megapixels, let me know that it was, indeed, one of those majestic monarchs we've been missing.

Hallelujah!

Washington State University entomologist and monarch researcher David James was right. On Aug. 31, he said I'd be seeing monarchs in a few weeks as they're leaving the Pacific Northwest (PNW) on their way to their overwintering sites along the California coast.  (See Sept. 2 Bug Squad blog)

"The numbers we are seeing in the PNW this summer are consistent with numbers I've seen in summers past when theoverwintering population was approximately 250,000 as it was last winter," he related Aug. 31. "Last summer (2021) I verified approximately 60 Monarch sightings in the PNW. This summer, I have had approximately 500 verified reports. So, I think we have seen an 8-10 fold increase in Monarch numbers this summer in the PNW.  The majority have been in Oregon, followed by Idaho, Washington and British Columbia. There are also positive reports of good numbers of Monarchs in Utah, Nevada and eastern California."

To track migratory monarchs, citizen scientists in the David James' research program affix a tag on the discal cell (underside of the hind wing). (The tag does not interfere with its flight.) This year James handed out 2000 tags to citizen scientists in southern Oregon.

Now, maybe we'll see another tagged traveler like the one we photographed in 2016. The scenario: One of his citizen scientists, Steve Anderson of Ashland, Ore., tagged a male monarch on Aug. 28, 2016 that stopped for nectar in our Vacaville pollinator garden on Sept. 5, 2016.  The tag read  “Monarch@wsu.edu A6093."  It hung around for five hours. (See Bug Squad blog and WSU news story)

"So, assuming it didn't travel much on the day you saw it, it flew 285 miles in 7 days or about 40.7 miles per day," James told us back in 2016. "Pretty amazing. So, I doubt he broke his journey for much more than the five hours you watched him--he could be 100 miles further south by now." 

Meanwhile, watch for monarchs! What to do if you see a WSU-tagged monarch? Photograph it, if you can, and contact David James at david_james@wsu.edu or the PNW Facebook page.  Also, report any Monarch sightings to iNaturalist and Journey North.

Entomologist David James of Washington State University, an authority on monarchs.

Be on the lookout for migratory Monarch butterflies from the Pacific Northwest heading south to their overwintering sites along the California coast.  

It's been a very good year for Monarchs in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), according to noted entomologist and Monarch researcher David James, an associate professor at Washington State University (WSU), Pullman.

"The numbers we are seeing in the PNW this summer are consistent with numbers I've seen in summers past when the overwintering population was approximately 250,000 as it was last winter," he wrote in an email Aug. 31.

"I have been compiling all the PNW monarch reports I have come across this summer--as I have done for many summers in the past. These have been from iNaturalist, Journey North, various Monarch Facebook pages and personal communications I get many people telling me they've seen a monarch.  I verify all reports, that is, they must have a photo, or I know the reporter is experienced."

"Last summer (2021) I verified approximately 60 Monarch sightings in the PNW. This summer, I have had approximately 500 verified reports. "So, I think we have seen an 8-10 fold increase in Monarch numbers this summer in the PNW.  The majority have been in Oregon, followed by Idaho, Washington and British Columbia. There are also positive reports of good numbers of Monarchs in Utah, Nevada and eastern California."

"So the signs are there for a good migration back to California this fall," James said.  "The big question will be whether the migrants proceed normally to the overwintering sites or whether they do what they did in 2020, establish winter breeding populations in slightly inland places like San Francisco and Los Angeles.  The determining factor will be the temperatures California experiences over the next six weeks.  If average temperatures prevail, then the butterflies will go to the coastal overwintering sites and we will have--I think--spectacular numbers again...at least as high as last year and possibly much higher."

This WSU-tagged monarch traveled from Ashland, Ore., to Vacaville, Calif., a distance of 285 miles in seven days, arriving in Vacaville on Sept. 5, 2016. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

To track migratory Monarchs, citizen scientists in the David James' research program affix a tag on the discal cell (underside of the hind wing). The tag does not interfere with its flight.

This year James handed out 2000 tags to citizen scientists in southern Oregon.

One of his citizen scientists, Steve Anderson of Ashland, Ore., tagged a male Monarch on Aug. 28, 2016 that stopped for nectar in our Vacaville pollinator garden on Sept. 5, 2016.  The tag read  “Monarch@wsu.edu A6093."  It hung around for five hours. (See Bug Squad blog and WSU news story)

"So, assuming it didn't travel much on the day you saw it, it flew 285 miles in 7 days or about 40.7 miles per day," James told us back in 2016. "Pretty amazing. So, I doubt he broke his journey for much more than the five hours you watched him--he could be 100 miles further south by now." 

This year, to date, we have not seen a single Monarch in our pollinator garden. James estimates we will start seeing the first ones within the next few weeks. "Johnson has already had one of his tagged monarchs recovered, admittedly only a few miles away but it was heading south!"

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, spotted four within half an hour in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden on Aug. 26. One was a tattered male. (See Bug Squad blog)

What to do if you see a WSU-tagged Monarch? Photograph it, if you can, and contact David James at david_james@wsu.edu or the PNW Facebook page.  Also, report any Monarch sightings to iNaturalist and Journey North.

Meanwhile, Monarch scientists, citizen scientists and Monarch enthusiasts are looking forward to the 2023 International Western Monarch Summit, set Friday through Sunday, Jan. 20-22 at Pismo Beach, San Luis Obispo. Registration is now underway. It's sponsored by Western Monarch Advocates (WMA), which relates its mission is "to serve as an overarching entity to encourage and facilitate communication and interaction of groups and individuals committed to restoring the western monarch butterfly population-regardless of their affiliation or location--in the hope that the shared knowledge will empower each of them to improve and better achieve restoration goals within their own respective affiliation or location."

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) placed the migratory monarch butterfly on its Red List of threatened species on July 21, 2022, classifying it as endangered. 

"In the 1990s, nearly 700 million monarchs made the epic flight each fall from the northern plains of the U.S. and Canada to sites in the oyamel fir forests north of Mexico City, and more than one million monarchs overwintered in forested groves on the California Coast," according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. "Now, researchers and citizen scientists estimate that only a fraction of the population remains, monarchs have declined by more than 80% since the 1990s from central Mexico, and by more than 99% since the 1980s in coastal California."

The Oregon silverspot butterfly. (Photo courtesy of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Henry will present an in-person and Zoom seminar, hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, on "Insect Conservation in an Uncertain Future" on Wednesday, March 2 in 122 Briggs Hall. Her seminar, open to all interested persons, begins at 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time. The host is Emily Meineke, assistant professor of urban and landscape entomology.

The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076

"Key to protecting biodiversity in an uncertain future is understanding how populations will respond to future environmental change and incorporating this information into conservation strategies," Henry says in her abstract. "In this talk I will focus on 1) how changing precipitation regimes affect the phenology and population dynamics of subtropical species 2) the need to maintain historic disturbance regimes to increase population resilience to catastrophic hurricanes and 3) the importance of careful assessment of whether conservation strategies are working as intended. My studies of endangered butterflies and their host plants highlight mechanisms that link species life history to climate change responses and provide a framework for developing conservation strategies that are rooted in basic ecology."

Her research topics include the Oregon silverspot butterfly (Speyeria zerene hippolyta), a threatened butterfly on the Oregon coast. She was featured in an Oregonlive.com news article, July 17, 2021.

"The silverspot once ranged from the Long Beach peninsula in southwest Washington to northern California," wrote Quenton Smith of Oregonlive.com. "But when it was first listed as endangered in 1980, its only known location were on two 'salt-spray' meadows overlooking the ocean near Rock Creek south of Yachats."

"Wild populations were subsequently discovered nearby at Brays Point, and on Mount Hebo, Cascade Head and the Clatsop Plains south of the Columbia River. Over the years the butterfly disappeared from the Clatsop Plains and Long Beach peninsula."

The Oregon silverspot once inhabited "suitable coastal habitat from northern California, through Oregon, into southern Washington," according to Wikipedia. 'It can now only be found in the wild at a few remaining sites in California and Oregon.^] Conservation sites include Cascade Head and the Rock Creek Wilderness in Oregon. The butterfly can also be found at Mount Hebo and Clatsop Plains in Oregon and at Lake Earl in California."

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology and author of The Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, says "this subspecies is nowhere near here, but other zerenes are (but not in the Sacramento Valley)." His former PhD student,  Rich Van Buskirk, now a professor at Pacific University, Forest Grove, Ore., studied the butterfly while at UC Davis and continues to do so. Van Buskirk and his colleagues recently received a $1.2 million, three-year federal grant to continue restoration work and research to protect the Oregon silverspot. 

Henry focuses her research on how rare species populations respond to environmental change – whether management or environmentally driven – and how to convert this knowledge into successful management strategies. To answer these questions, I use detailed natural history observations, local and landscape-scale experiments, and quantitative population models. In all of my work, I collaborate closely with land managers to answer questions that directly fill knowledge gaps that impede on the ground decision making. These collaborations allow me to directly translate my research results into improved conservation plans that increase the probability of successful endangered species recovery."

Henry obtained her doctorate in biology, ecology and evolution, from North Carolina State University, specializing in conservation and population biology. She wrote her dissertation on "Disturbance and Conservation of At-Risk Butterflies." She holds a master's degree in environmental science from WSU, where she specialized in conservation and restoration ecology. Her thesis: "A First Step Toward Successful Habitat Restoration and Reintroduction: Understanding Oviposiition Site Selection of an Imperiled Butterfly, Mardon Skipper." She is an alumnus of  Willamette University, Salem, where she studied biology and Spanish.  

"As my dissertation concluded, I secured funding from both the National Science Foundation and Everglades National Park to continue my research evaluating the interacting effects of multiple disturbances on population dynamics," Henry writes on her website. "In early 2021, as my previous funding was wrapping up, I was recruited back to Washington State University to lead a research effort that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of different management strategies for Oregon silverspot butterflies."

Nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, coordinates the weekly seminars. For any technical issues regarding the Zoom seminar, contact Siddique at siddique@ucdavis.edu.