Ahhh… October.  The marsh is golden, the sweetgrass is blooming, the warblers are careening through.  Along with sweetgrass, the camphorweed and mistflower and seaside goldenrod are all blooming along the edges, and the butterflies are truly amazing. There are gulf fritillaries everywhere, as well as a wide variety of skippers and sulphurs. A single patch of mistflower along Old House Lane boasts at least 5 kinds of butterflies.    Sunday’s Post and Courier had a great article about monarch migration:

Lowcountry beaches are the heart of one of the Eastern flyways, and at the peak of the migration, thousands of the butterflies at a time might be sipping nectar across a single barrier island.

“They roost communally and the roosts can be spectacular. I’ve seen hundreds of them assembled in a single roosting colony,” ecologist Billy McCord said.

 
These pics were all shot over the last few days… take a slow cart ride around the island to appreciate the fall.
http://bluepixy.smugmug.com/Other/Dewees-Fall-Butterflies-and/19379144_ZSzfFZ

Mary Alice Monroe, local bestselling author and mentor to the Dewees Turtle team, has a relatively new book out, called The Butterfly’s Daughter. She intersperses great natural history information with a good story, and writes that,

Monarch butterflies that emerge in the fall are unique. Butterflies that emerge in the spring and summer live two to four weeks. But the fourth=generation monarchs that emerge in the fall do not mate. They follow their instincts and migrate south. Called the Methuselah generation, they live for six or seven months.

In the book, you’ll find an interesting character named Billy McCall, who tags butterflies. You can learn more from our Butterfly man himself with the Dewees Island Conservancy’s butterfly/migrating bird event at the end of the month. It should be a great experience in the field! If, as the P&C reports, the monarch’s preferred food is the groundsel tree, they should be ready to bloom right about then and we should be treated to a sight!