I saw my first Monarch Butterfly this afternoon and thought it would be cool to track the migration on here. This is about three weeks sooner than normal for Arkansas, and I was just wondering where and if anybody else has noticed them.
Monarch Migration
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I haven't seen any Monarchs here in North Texas yet. I did however have an invasion of Swallowtail butterflies about a month ago. They laid eggs all around the garden for about a week, and of course, the herbs got destroyed since Swallowtail caterpillars LOVE them.
The migration is beginning near where I live, though I did find a little egg on our tropical milkweed plant. I let one out that I had kept in a chrysalis yesterday afternoon since it hatched, but I feel kind of bad because we had an intense storm just a few hours later. Lol! It looked like a strong tropical storm was moving through.
The monarchs started to hatch about three weeks early up here and are already heading south, so it makes sense that you are seeing them early.
My theory: Spring and summer both started early up here, so the monarch's life-cycle began earlier than normal in the year as well as the milkweed's, which naturally would lead to a sooner hatching and migration. I think it's more a response to spring and summer rather than a predicition of fall/winter.