Twenty volunteers helped record occurrence of monarch butterflies on a supreme Sand Hill morning with great scattered cloudness on August 3rd at Valentine NWR.
People from Valentine, Thedford, Ainsworth, Bassett, Norfolk and South Dakota helped record eggs, several exquisitely striped larvae and two beautiful flitting about adults associated with prevalent common milkweed, as well as swamp, green and sand milkweed. There were five survey transects along the north side of Hackberry lake where these plants thrive.
Each participant walked along and inspected hundreds of individual plants for any indication of monarch butterfly occurrence. Everyone dodged the poison ivy. Along the way dickcissels and common yellowthroat were heard amidst their favored prairie-land habitat.
The survey was sponsored by the Sandhill Prairie Refuge Association with help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The effort was associated with the third annual international monarch butterfly monitoring blitz.
