The 2023 transect season is in the books and the year finished in third place in terms of total number of butterflies documented on our transects.

The months of June and August were very strong, while the other months turned out average, compared to numbers over time. The years of 2019 and 2021 need to be taken with a grain of salt as those years each had a month with an out of the ordinary strong showing. The reasons for those extraordinary months are unsure, but the hunch would be weather related to some extent. We know that the Tiger Swallowtail population in August of 2019 was extremely high, hence one reason for the exceptionality of 2019.

One thing we can say with certainty is that in four of the last five years, our butterfly population was at least quadrupled that of the baseline year of 2015. And even our bad year of 2020 was still triple that of our baseline year. The poor showing of 2020 was in part the result of a very cold spring. The moral of the story is that our habitat work is having the desired effect!

We can help you have this success with your butterfly population as well. During our off-season, which starts in a couple weeks, we give talks to interested groups in which we share our knowledge and experience. Feel free to contact us at chris@butterfly-ridge.com if you would like to schedule a talk for your group.