Rob Santry <kingbird@...> of Anderson, California
(near Redding) asked me to forward his following report to
the western monarch group:
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My wife and I decided to check out milkweed along State
Hwy 299 from Redding to the coast, looking for evidence
of Monarchs.

On Friday, July 3rd, when we left home in Anderson, a
Monarch was working to Narrow-leaved Milkweed near
our house. Up on the Trinity River, near the 'town' of
Helena we found two Monarch caterpillars on Showy
Milkweed. There was a lot of Showy milkweed in the
Weaverville area,continuing west to the town of Del Loma,
and then it stopped. It probably is too damp for milkweed
as you get closer to the coast.

Also mixed in was Narrow-leaved milkweed. Throughout the
trip we never saw any monarch caterpillars on the
narrow-leaved milkweed. We live in the Sacramento Valley
and have Narrow-leaved milkweed in our neighborhood,
and we hope that there will be Monarch caterpillars in it.

On Sunday, July 5th we returned home and found three
more catapillers in the Weaverville and Lewiston areas
of Trinity County. We were very close to the Trinity River,
and again, a good mixture of milkweed was found. That
is five caterpillars in seven good searches! We didn't work
a lot of the milkweed due to safety concerns along the
highway, so our more intensive searching was limited.

As a side note, I just got an email from another local
butterfly enthusiast, Ray Bruun. He had Monarchs
working the milkweed yesterday, near Shingletown,
which is a mountain community in southeastern Shasta
County, on the Way to Lassen Park on Hwy 44. So, we
have some local enthusiasts here in Shasta County
working our local patches of milkweed.

Regards,

Rob Santry
Anderson, CA