For the second time we've been waiting with Monarchs for Monarch Watch.org to ship our tags and still no tags.  Jane and I ordered them in early July and were told they would start shipping in early August.  This is their third day of being in their condo.

 

These four (all females) will make a total of six Monarchs that Loving Garland Green has released at the Garland Community Garden in August:  Five females and one male.  In April when they came through here Jane Stroud, President Loving Garland Green rescued twelve as caterpillars. Seven were released. Thus so far in Garland we have rescued 18 caterpillars and released 13 Monarchs--and the so-called season for them in Garland has not even begun.  [Note: because it was early April, the caterpillars ate all the milkweed in Jane's garden. Seven of them made pupas but she still had five hungry caterpillars on her hands so she ran out to a local nursery and bought some milkweed that was likely tainted with pesticide as all five of the ones still in the caterpillar stage died.

 

We are releasing them at 1PM because 1) It's after the time when our mail comes and we will hold out hope for tags until then and 2) it gives the monarchs plenty of time to gather nectar before dark.

 

When you are at the garden you can also look at the three gigantic haystacks in the garden and have photos of yourself as a monarch taken.  Normally we would not accept hay because it usually has seeds associated with it.  However this hay is very dry and loose and movement to the Garland Community Garden makes its third move which means the largest portion of any seeds it may have had were left at its prior sites.  We will be using it for mulch that will enrich existing beds and also as material for new beds.

Please invite any staff or partners you feel may be interested in this update or those who have technical expertise regarding monarch butterflies and evaluating their population status. In addition to the update, we will provide information on the Monarch Conservation Efforts Database that we are developing and there will be time for questions and answers. We hope you can join us.

Tuesday, August 29   2:00 p.m. Central Time

Webinar and audio conference:

URL: https://www.mymeetings.com/nc/join/

Conference number: PW5035962

Audience passcode: 7971644

Participants can join the event directly at:

https://www.mymeetings.com/nc/join.php?i=PW5035962&p=7971644&t=c