Tuesday, August 18, 2015

August 16, 2015: Milkweeds & Monarchs


Portions of the Upland Trail's north slope are hayed every mid-summer.  Several stands of milkweed (mostly Common) are found in this area.  With the Monarch becoming imperiled, Paul and I decided to delineate the best stands in the north slope, with the hope preserving some habitat and the plants that this butterfly depends on.  We completed this work on Saturday morning.  We have asked the Parks Dept to inform the farmer of this, with the hope that he will not hay these stands.  The haying operation began on Friday with the two eastern-most slopes. At left, Paul is attaching pink flagging to a milkweed.  At right, one of the Monarch caterpillars found during this operation. 8/1/15 (Wolf. Oesterreich)

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