August 11, 2017 – 8/19 or 8/26 – Monarch Tagging at Lower Crab Creek

This outing is to catch and tag Monarchs as part of the Monarch migration monitoring program. Hopefully tagged Monarchs will be recovered in California during the winter.

Monarch tagging day update:  The Lower Crab Creek population is still strong (despite triple digit temps and smoke) and we are still set to hold this day on either Saturday August 19 or August 26.  I suspect it will be the latter date but as I know only too well, Monarchs are difficult to predict.

August 18, 2017 – 8/26 Monarch Tagging ???

Update from David James: The Monarch tagging day at Lower Crab Creek near Vantage, WA is tentatively planned for Saturday August 26. The new (migrant) generation of Monarchs has just started emerging but currently only accounts for about 25% of the population (up from 8% on Monday). Hopefully this new generation continues to emerge in larger numbers over the next few days. I will check the status again on Tuesday August 22 and email later that day with the go-ahead or cancellation.

August 22, 2017 – Monarch Tagging Is On!!

Monarch Fans!

I have just returned from Crab Creek and unfortunately the numbers of Monarchs are pretty much the same as I saw last Friday (about 35 seen in a 3 hour period).  The good news though is that the percentage of new generation individuals, that is the migrant generation that we would like to tag, has increased from 25% to about 50%.

However, the number of Monarchs at Crab Creek available for tagging on Saturday is not likely to be large, unlike 2014 when the tagging day resulted in 80 Monarchs tagged.

Although we wont tag many Monarchs I am still happy to hold a ‘Monarch Day’ at Lower Crab Creek on Saturday August 26.  I think many of you would simply like to see some Monarchs living in their natural habitat.  Let me know if my assumption is correct!

Watch Al Wagar’s video of the Trip