Linn County, Iowa - A place for pollinators

We who live in Linn County, Iowa are fortunate that we have a progressive program to develop pollinator habitat for monarchs and pollinators!  Please follow the below links to learn more!

From:  http://www.linncounty.org/1345/1000-Acres-Pollinator-Initiative
"The 1,000 Acres Pollinator Initiative is a public/private partnership in which Linn County Conservation, has partnered with the Monarch Research Project (MRP), Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation, and the Marion Parks Department. This collaborative effort aims to restore 1,000 public land acres to a diverse native prairie habitat (Pollinator Zones) within five years through private funding. This primary goal is to restore significant monarch and pollinator habitat throughout the communities of Linn County, Iowa through a collaborative public/private partnership that engages governmental, business, educational, non-profit, and citizen sectors of the community."

  ..... In the first three years of the initiative (2017-2019), 802 of the 1,000 acres have been installed with a funding level of about $630,000 provided primarily by the Monarch Research Project through private donations and grants on over 400 acres on Linn County Conservation managed areas"

Click for a video about the project
 

The Linn County 1,000 Acres Pollinator Initiative is a recipient of the 2019 Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC) Excellence in Action Award, a competitive awards program that seeks to recognize innovative county government employees, programs, and projects. The awards were presented during a ceremony at the ISAC Annual Conference in Des Moines on August 21, 2019.


Also read about a 6.6 acre Orlan Love Prairie at Squaw Creek Park
“Orlan’s stories are credited with raising public awareness of the need to protect natural resources in Eastern Iowa and beyond the state’s borders,” the sign installed at the prairie reads, in part. “This prairie is a living tribute to a much-loved writer and conservationist.” From Homegrown Iowan

Roosts in Iowa!

September 9, 2019 - The Journey North Monarch Roosts map is reporting roosts in or near the towns of Pleasant Hill, Rhodes, Dysart, Walcott and Manchester, IA. We are nearing mid-September "peak migration" for monarchs through Iowa!

If you see a roost, be sure to report it!  https://maps.journeynorth.org/map/?year=2019&map=monarch-roost-fall


Members from our group reporting roosts:

Cammie (near Whittier, IA) reports - Monarchs have been roosting overnight in my yard every night since September 1. Slightly surprised since last year I didn’t notice roosting until about mid month. Wednesday morning located approximately 93 with around 50 in one tree. This morning found about 45. I like to start stalking them around 6:30 and they typically will have trees picked out and settling down by about 7:30. Some will still come in around dark. Wind direction is a key in determining the chosen spot. AND -  Located approximately 100 this morning, Sunday September 8

September 8
Beverly from near Marengo, Sept. 8th - I finally have a roost in my maple and mulberry trees. It was like walking in a dream. Hard to put a count on them. My tree was covered. Maybe a 750. The migrators are here!

September 11
Cheryl (northeast of Belle Plaine) saw a roost of 200 to 300
Julie in Davenport witnessed a small roost

Sept 12
Brenda, from Sutherland, had about 50 roosting
Kim, from Newton, 50+ monarchs - In all these years I’ve never seen Monarchs roosting! Today I did! Right across the street from my house. What an incredible experience.

Sept 13
Gwen in Deep River observed about 70
Linda, near West Branch saw a sizeable roost - Such a miraculous sight!

Sept 14
Renae, from Dunkerton - My back yard is full of monarchs!

Sept 15
Cheryl in Belle Plaine - Roost #2 this year for me! 6 pm 9/15/19 (in the middle of town)! These were everywhere! Was mowing late afternoon and noticed them flying around out back in the wooded area. They were not in huge groups but there were LOTS of groups of 4-30 in a group! They were even on the tall weeds! Guessing around 500!!! Every where I walked, Monarchs would fly! LOVE THIS!!!!

Jim from the Monona Butterfly Garden, Monona, IA - Monarchs have been roosting in and around Monona this week. Last night a roost of 650 was observed in the Monona Butterfly Garden. Tonight, we went down to count monarchs and found none. We saw only 3 monarchs all day. This may indicate the migration has moved south out of Northeast Iowa.

Scott, just North of Ankeny - My yard is being swarmed! Hundreds of roosting Monarchs tonight!

Sept 17, 2019
Jim (Monona Butterfly Garden) After two days with no monarchs roosting in the Butterfly Garden trees, an estimate of 700 tonight! Nectar source now is New England Aster and Macmillan Sunflower.

Sept 18, 2019
Jim (Monona Butterfly Garden) Many small groups of 10-75 total estimate tonight is 850. New England Aster is finally blooming and a big draw here. we even have them in our yard trees now.

Dave (Des Moines area) The migration is in full force in central Iowa. Yesterday late afternoon and evening I witnessed a continual stream of monarchs flying south 50-100 yards high. At a stoplight at a 235W entrance in Des Moines, around 4:30, I saw at least 50 streaming past in the short time waiting for green. They appeared to be traveling together, same height and following each other. Later I tagged 10 in a resting spot I accidentally located a couple weeks ago...in this spot I tagged 25 over 2 days 9/11-12.

Sept 19, 2019
Jim - Roost count tonight at Monona Butterfly Garden is 900. Note: first year since 2003 we have seen roosts over 100 and several of those years, there were no roosts at all. (2011 & 2012)

Read a Journey North blog about other amazing sightings
https://journeynorth.org/monarchs/news/fall-2019/09192019-amazing-year-eastern-migratory-monarch-population

Sept 20, 2019
Jim - My home very near the butterfly garden 110, Monona Butterfly Garden 1120, Friends house 350. Total roost count tonight from Monona is 1580..They are definitely on the move in large numbers. Our friend said the two hours earlier their roost was 3-4 times larger so some must have moved on.

Sept 21,2091
Jim - Total estimate this evening 1285 at the Monona Butterfly Garden and 335 in neighbors trees

Dave, Des Moines area - Saw 2 different roosts today, one I was invited to this morning, and one where we’ve been tagging monarchs...today more monarchs than the previous times by far. 100s...not sure how to even estimate the number.

Sepr 23
Cammie - NE of Marion - . Six large clusters of 100-200 and many smaller. Figured it would be a good day with the weather recently. They have been there all afternoon.

Dave - Des Moines area - If you get a chance to be outside today, look up..Monarchs pouring through central Iowa right now, likely the same throughout the state. Stepped on my deck and literally saw a dozen in a few minutes...soaring, circling ... all headed south...saw a similar amount driving a mile down the road for lunch. Enjoy!!

Jim -Butterfly Garden, Monona - Roost estimate is 1000 for tonight. The west wind slowed their progress. Monarchs were everywhere in town and large numbers crossing the highways in south and westerly directions.

Sept 24
Jim - Monona Butterfly Garden - 1400 tonight. strong SSW wind has slowed them down again. the monarchs are roosting significantly lower in the trees and shrubs tonight Roosting on the north and east sides of trees. Cannot remember ever having roosting monarchs for more than 4-5 days, it's almost 2 weeks now!!

Sept 25
Amy from Waterloo - Oh em geeeeeee.... I am stoked that I found these guys hanging out in our trees! I have no idea how to even estimate because they were lots of individual roosting spots all over our tree lines. I may or may not have taken a stupid number of photos of them!

Jim from Monona Butterfly Garden - could be the last monarch roost post this year, 1 roost of 60 monarchs in Monona at the butterfly garden. All the others are on their way to see you all on their way to Mexico.

Sept 26
Susan from Iowa City - My 4 year old and I counted 27 Monarchs in flight over a few MINUTES in the Iowa City area. Made my heart so happy! What we do makes a difference! (Other members also stated they saw monarchs in flight heading south.) 

Nancy from Central City - photographed a roost in her backyard.

Fall events

August 13, 2019
I ran a search on Google, "2019 monarch butterfly events, Iowa". HOLY COW there are a lot of them!  CLICK HERE for the results and find an event near you! Be sure to verify that the event actually IS in 2019!

Best practices for tagging migrating monarchs

We have entered the time of the year that we are now raising the super generation of monarchs, those that will fly to overwinter in Mexico.

All members should thoroughly read this blog post from Monarch Watch. "Tagging wild and reared monarchs: Best practices"

It contains information on the BEST practices for rearing successful migrators, and suggests you PLAN YOUR REARING so that the newly–emerged monarchs can be tagged early in the migratory season (10 days before to 10 days after the expected date of arrival of the leading edge of the migration in your area,  

The leading edge in Iowa is around September 8th, so that would mean tagging August 30 through September 18th.

Also MEI recommends that you plan to STOP collecting eggs/ and rearing by August 30th, preferably by mid-August. What is the use of raising monarchs that may not make it to Mexico? Or making them fly in temperatures that are just too cold?

I have attempted to break down the Monarch Watch post to make it a bit more understandable ..... good tips if you want your monarchs to make it to Mexico, tagged or not tagged!

EXCERPTS FROM THE BLOG POST:
"The migration is a strong selective force. It eliminates the weak, those with diseases, the undersized and those with genetic and other deficiencies

It also eliminates those that have not received the environmental cues that properly trigger diapause and the orientation and directional flight characteristics of the migration."

1. Rear larvae under the most natural conditions possible.
"In other words, rearing outdoors, on porches, in pole barns, open garages, etc., would likely produce better results than rearing in an air–conditioned kitchen, spare bedroom or similar space."

2. Provide an abundance of living or fresh–picked and sanitized foliage to larvae.  ..."raising the monarchs on living plants–potted or in the ground–is likely to produce the largest monarchs, provided that the monarch larvae have an abundance of foliage to feed on at all times. Cut foliage in the form of leaves also works well, but the leaves have to be fresh and abundant relative to the numbers of larvae in each container."

3. Provide clean rearing conditions.
"Containers should be cleaned each day once the larvae reach the 4th instar.

"To avoid passing the monarch disease Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (O.e. or OE) from outdoor monarchs to reared monarchs, both the living and cut foliage can be sanitized using a 10% bleach solution with a drop or two of liquid soap added. After soaking in the bleach solution for two minutes, the leaves should be rinsed thoroughly with clean water and patted dry before being fed to larvae."

"Living plants can be sprayed with the bleach solution and then rinsed. If you are using cut stems with leaves intact, they can be cleaned the same way. In that case, be sure to cut the stems under warm water before placing them in vases, etc. The warm water keeps the latex vesicles from closing down the transport of water to the leaves. Cut stems work to feed larvae, but they can go limp and be less suitable as a food source than cut leaves."

4. Plan the rearing so that the newly–emerged monarchs can be tagged early in the migratory season (10 days before to 10 days after the expected date of arrival of the leading edge of the migration in your area*).
MEI NOTE: The leading edge in Iowa is around September 8th, so that would mean tagging August 30 through September 18th.
5. Tag the butterflies once the wings have hardened and release them the day after emergence if possible.

6. When it comes to tagging, tag only the largest** and most–fit monarchs. "Records of tags applied to monarchs that have little chance of reaching Mexico add to the mass of tagging data, but do not help us learn which monarchs reach Mexico – unless the measurements, weight and condition of every monarch tagged and released is recorded. There are a few taggers who keep such detailed records and those data can be very informative. If you collect such data and are willing to share it please contact Monarch Watch; do not add this information to the standard tagging datasheet."

**The easiest way to judge the size of your monarchs is to measure the forewing from the base to the apex of the wing (Figure 1). These measures range from 46–52 mm with most migratory monarchs measuring 49–51 mm. After some experience with both wild and reared monarchs, it is relatively easy to judge those that are below 49 mm.

An expert's opinion on rearing monarchs

This is a letter submitted to the Dplex-L email list by the Director of the Monarch Lab at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Karen Oberhauser.

The Dplex-L List is Monarch Watch's monarch butterfly discussion list.

Monarch Watch Conservation Specialist, Debbie Jackson asked that we post this to hopefully allay fears of those that are rearing/raising eggs or caterpillars from the wild.

This is in response to the recent study outlined in an article from The Atlantic, " Monarch Butterflies Reared in Captivity Lack a Crucial Ability"

From: Karen Oberhauser
Date: Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 3:44 PM
Subject: [Dplex-L] Commercial and Indoor rearing

Dear All,

I'm going to add my thoughts to a long line of communication on the recent paper in PNAS about commercial and indoor monarch rearing and the resulting coverage. I was interviewed for several of the media reports on this article, and have thus received many messages about my message, at least as it was conveyed by reporters.

The most important finding of the paper in question is that monarchs reared in captivity for generation after generation become genetically distinct from wild populations, and at least in the commercial butterflies purchased for this study, did not exhibit migratory behavior. That is a problem, and a robust result of the paper. The fact that only one commercial stock was used means that the study needs follow-up, but it does show that long-term mass rearing can result in genetic change that has the potential to cause problems for individual monarchs that are then released into the wild, and potentially for wild monarch populations if there is interbreeding.

Large-scale mass rearing for multiple generations is very different from rearing monarchs in captivity that are collected as eggs or larvae, and then released when they emerge as adults. It is important to note that the inside rearing in the experiment was done in incubators in which temperature and light were carefully controlled; think of a big warm refrigerator with controlled lights. As a result, the monarchs were not exposed to any natural light or temperature fluctuations; the lights went on for 14 hours, and were then off for 10 hours. While the authors said that these are fall-like conditions, they aren't. In the fall, daylength outside is changing rapidly. Work done in my lab at the University of Minnesota showed that decreasing daylength was a key driver of diapause induction. In most inside rearing conditions, such as in people's houses and classrooms, there are windows and diurnal temperature fluctuations which provide exposure to natural environmental cues. I’m actually not surprised that the monarchs didn’t migrate after being in an incubator under constant daylength conditions.

The genetic aspects of the study were interesting and important, but the conclusion about risks of single-generation raising of wild-collected eggs and larvae has much less validity. In my opinion, what people are doing when they rear monarchs in this way has incredible educational, inspirational, and scientific importance. As Ilse Gebhart pointed out, we would not know what we know about monarch parasitoids without the citizen scientists who rear monarchs they collect as eggs and larvae. I would encourage everyone who does rear monarchs to report their findings to the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project (mlmp.org; look for Activity 3 in the monitoring section).

The key message from this study is that there is strong evidence that purchasing monarchs from commercial suppliers will not help monarchs, and it could cause harm to release those monarchs into the wild. In my opinion, the risks of commercial production outweigh the benefits. I have said that often, and this study provides documentation of one of the potential risks, genetic change that makes the monarchs less successful in the wild.

Thanks to everyone on this list for your clear dedication to monarch conservation, which I share.

Karen

Summer raising and events

Monarch in Eastern Iowa members are happily gathering monarch eggs and caterpillars (we call them cats) from milkweed plants once again. Soon we will have a new batch of Monarchs to release to nature, where they will lay eggs and make more butterflies. 

THANK YOU NEW PI FOR YOUR GENEROSITY!

For the fifth year New Pioneer Food Co-op (New Pi) has generously donated cups in which our members can raise cats.

Carrying out boxes of containers from New Pi.

Genie from the Co-op said the following:
"I want you to know that the containers & lids are compostable corn “plastic.” They are not dishwasher safe. They are better for the environment than than straight plastic ones. With the oceans filling up with rubbish, I felt your merry band of butterfly enthusiasts would appreciate this detail.

I also want to mention that plastic containers would have been a $190 donation, but these were $600. We at the Co-op really appreciate what you are doing for the planet & our values align. Our Co-op community & leadership really pulled through with support. This is one of our top three investments for the year.

We at MEI are VERY thankful for the support of New Pi! 
 -------------------------------------------------------- 
In other matters, we are going to be participating in a couple upcoming events. We encourage you to come out, bring your kids, enjoy and learn!

FAIRFAX USA DAYS
Saturday, June 22nd, 8:00 am to 1:00 p.m.
near the Fairfax Public Library
The first is at the town of Fairfax during their USA Days. The Fairfax Monarch Project is sponsoring an area dedicated to monarch education as part of the street fair (near the library). Monarch in Eastern Iowa will have an information table, MEI member, Roberta, will be there with her magiscopes and milkweed and pollinator seedlings to share, Milkweed Matters will have a seedball making table, the Fairfax Girl Scout Troop will be helping, and Mike Martin will be there representing Monarch Research Project! There will be caterpillar adoptions, crafts and more.

MONARCH FEST, INDIAN CREEK NATURE CENTER
Saturday, July 13,  10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.,
5300 Otis Rd SE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 
This event is FREE and open to the public!  
MEI will be there with an information table as well as milkweed plants and pollinator plants to share with the public.

There will also be:
  Children’s crafts
  Milkweed seed ball making for Ragbrai riders
  Vendors
  Caterpillar adoptions (Limited number each hour, one caterpillar per family)
  Butterfly releases
  Educational presentations
  Popcorn and Honey Lemonade for sale featuring honey from Indian Creek Nature Center
 

Upcoming events and here they come!

We try to post upcoming events of interest on our Calendar. Please click the "Calendar" tab above to view them and be sure to check back!

The monarchs are starting to leave their winter home in Mexico to fly north. Read this post from Journey North  -  "Here they come!"

Photo from Journey North

Monarch Raising - yes or no

Please read information on the below link from Chip Taylor of Monarch Watch concerning the controversy on whether to raise or not to raise Monarch Butterflies from eggs and caterpillars.  

September 18, 2018
Monarch Watch Speaks Out About Raising Monarchs at Home

After you read it,  and as you make your plans for 2019, you may want to really think about ....
1) how many monarchs should you be raising
2) should you be raising monarchs early in the season and not into the fall migration? (stop collecting eggs/caterpillars by August 15)
3) think about raising the migrating generation outdoors to acclimatize them to natural conditions.
3) think about getting serious about checking for disease before release
4) think about changing part of your priorities to planting, planting, planting milkweed and pollinator plants. Especially pollinators that bloom in the autumn for migrating monarchs to fuel up on!
5) think about sharing your enthusiasm with friends and neighbors, schools, churches, clubs and organizations - especially about planting milkweed!


AND on another topic ... 
You may be interested in some of these upcoming webinars! Monarch Joint Venture has posted The 2019 Monarch Conservation Webinar Series