Painted Lady Flight is On

Thousands of Painted Lady butterflies, Vanessa cardui, are flying east down Robertson Creek and Finch Creek today (3/28/09). These flights are not uncommon here in the upper Carmel Valley. It is still a sight to behold and these colorful insects zip past, dodging trees, shrubs at a very fast pace. The afternoon temperatures were in the low 80's along Finch Creek, but we noticed a strong breeze from the west on the hills of about 10-12 mph all afternoon kept the hilltops of Hastings in the mid-70s. There we almost now wind along the creek bottoms where the butterflies were abundant from mid-morning to evening. We counted about 100 per minute crossing a yard of about 80 ft. x 100 ft.

It took many tries with a butterfly net to finally snag one so we could identify it. We have one photo of the open wings, and one of the butterfly when the wings are folded. Thanks to Andrew Stromberg for his energetic butterfly net work. Today, March 29, we drove from Hastings (where the flight has slowed dramatically) to Carmel and Monterey. There, there were large numbers of butterflies flying north, about 100/min. over say, a gas station parking lot. And Mike Hamilton, on the Blue Oak Reserve on Mt. Hamilton also reports about 100/min. passing over a similarly-sized sampling area the Blue Oak Reserve headquarters. Mark Readdie at the Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur reports that the flight of butterflies does not extend down that far south along the coast.