We made our last visit to the Monarch Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach, CA, to see the butterflies. The population was an estimated 34,000. It was not expected to increase much more this year. Some years they had more than 200,000 - that must have been quite a sight. Of course, the eastern northern hemisphere butterflies migrate to groves in Mexico where they have had more than 20,000,000 gather in the winter.
They will continue to increase in numbers through December, but only about 10,000 more.
We were told, one reason they cluster is to weigh down the branch to minimize the effects of the wind.
It was early and still pretty cool, so we saw very little activity.
Every time we visited the Butterfly Grove we said we would stay for the docent talk one day - today was the day. Beautiful weather brought out a pretty large crowd for a Monday. I thought it made sense assuming everyone was on vacation. But, as the docent went around the audience asking each where they were from, nearly everyone was local. OK, there was one couple from Michigan.
We managed to learn a lot of new things about the Monarchs. They cannot fly at temperatures below 55 degrees. So, if one falls from the cluster at night, he falls to the ground and has to wait for the temperature to climb before he can fly again. If he's lucky he might avoid being a meal for a field mouse before he can fly again. We learned how to distinguish between male and female butterflies. We also learned something about butterfly mating rituals. It's strange, but then the entire life cycle of the butterfly is nothing short of bizarre, (the yearly migration that spans five to six generations).
The giant clams that greeted us when we first arrived and then morphed into jack-o-lanterns are now turkeys. What will they think of next?
The new camera has a specific mode for sunsets. It captured the sunset nicely, but then I saw some people using their i-phones getting some fantastic pictures too, so the credit really goes to Mother Nature for this one.
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