She rushed to get past the rocks and thick brush with her net in a wash within the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. But as she neared it with difficulty, the butterfly lifted up and soared away.
She continued after it with other volunteers who tag Monarch butterflies in Arizona.
  
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Chris Kline, education coordinator for Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park, began the Southwest Monarch Study about six years ago when he found a lack of information about Arizona monarchs.
“The answer that kept getting was ‘I don’t know,’ ” he said.
Kline had already worked for the University of Kansas’ Monarch Watch, studying and tagging the insects, so he began a new study to look at the migration habits of butterflies across the southwest United States.
The common belief is that monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains migrate to Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve in Mexico to winter and those west of the Rocky Mountains winter in central coastal and southern California.
But since the study began, the only three of their tagged specimen to be found outside of Arizona were in the mountains outside of Mexico City.
“Monarch 157X had flown roughly 1,200 miles before being recaptured,” wrote Joe Billings, a dedicated volunteer for the Southwest Monarch Study, for the Tucson Audubon Society’s Vermilion Flycatcher.
Billings had tagged the wild monarch in a Canelo marsh six months earlier.
“I felt goose bumps creep across my skin as I tried to envision those magnificent orange wings soaring aloft above desert plateaus and mountain escarpments of Mexico. Did you have many compadres, El Mariposo?” Billings wrote.
It was their first wild monarch tag to be recovered at a wintering site in central Mexico.
“What it shows is that either all three of those monarchs went the wrong way or the theory is not correct. I’m leaning towards the latter,” Kline said.
How to catch a monarch
Those dedicated to the study spend many of hours in washes, canyons, marshes and fields of Arizona searching for monarchs.
The tagging season is August through November, as the monarchs feed, reproduce and fly to their next destination.
But this year most monarchs may have headed onto their winter destination sooner than they expected.
Though their search for monarchs has taken them all over the state, the meadows and washes of Cochise, Santa Cruz and eastern Pima counties are monarch hot spots, where Kline, Billings and other volunteers have made trips to throughout the season.
For their last organized trip of the season on Nov. 1 in Sonoita, about 16 volunteers from Tucson and Phoenix areas came to help. Kline introduced them to the art of monarch tagging.
The first step is trying to predict where the monarchs will be and the way to a monarch is through its stomach. They are found where they feed at masses of thistle, sunflowers, marsh sunflowers and rabbitbrush blooms.
“That’s what draws the monarchs in, these wonderful masses of yellow,” Cline said.
Unfortunately, they are picky eaters, preferring blooms at their peak.
“If you don’t get here at the right point during that two- to three-week window, you’re driving 300 miles for maybe nothing,” Kline said.
Kline and Billings were concerned that monarchs they hoped to find that morning in Gardner Canyon of the Santa Rita Mountains may have already left, perhaps due to the cold snap in mid October.
But there was a good sign when Billings found one just before 9 a.m. With this specimen, Kline demonstrated how the butterflies are tagged.
The monarchs wings are made up of powdery scales that contain tiny hairs. Since fingers can damage these hairs the best place to hold the butterfly is by the leading edge of its front wings, Kline said.
Then observations are recorded: The location it was found, if it’s male or female, and its condition.
“Does it look fresh and brand new like it emerged yesterday, or does it look like its been hit by a truck, or is it somewhere in between?” Kline said.
They use that data to find out when the migrating generation of butterflies has emerged. Most monarchs come out of their cocoon, feed, reproduce and die within about one month, but the migrating generation, which usually emerges in about mid September, waits to mate.
“They save up all that energy for the long flight to Mexico” Kline said. These distance flyers live to be up to about 6 months old.
Finally, the monarch gets its tag — a thin sticker, weighing about 0.02 percent of its body weight, is placed on the hind wing near the body.
The newly dubbed Monarch #I522 was then released.
Next, volunteers with nets went to look for monarchs.
“Believe it or not, there is a technique in catching a butterfly,” Kline said.
Wait until the monarch is feeding, when they’re much easier to catch. Monarchs have good vision and will usually see someone coming toward them, he said, unless you come from behind.
“There is a 20-degree window directly behind them that they can’t see,” he said.
Once they’re within reach of a net, it’s time to take a swing.
“You gotta swing up totally through it and then flip.”
Kline and Billing’s suspicion seemed to be true. No other monarchs were found that morning, so the group headed to a wash in the Las Cienegas Natural Conservation Area.
On the hunt
Susie Whiting of Phoenix decided to give the experience a try, but she had a suspicion it was a snipe hunt.
“I just couldn’t really imagine how you could tag a butterfly,” she said.
Although they didn’t net any monarchs, it was a good way to get outdoors and participate in scientific study, said Scott Morris, who is also from Phoenix.
Marguerite O’Driscoll of Tempe agreed.
“It’s kind of like the Discovery Channel, in person,” she said.
Val Valdez snapped photographs of other butterflies while his three daughters looked for monarchs and practiced catching other butterflies with nets.
“I’m catching them in my own way,” he said.
Martin eventually caught up with the orange butterfly she was chasing, but it turned out to be a Queen butterfly, one of the impostors that look similar to the monarch.
Billing and others stayed out until the mid afternoon searching for one last monarch, and they found it, Billings said.
Last year they tagged a total of about 1,500 wild monarchs.
Though they’ve become “obsessed addicts” on the hunt for butterflies, they also are finding out more than was ever known about monarchs in the Southwest, Kline said.
“That’s why we continue doing what we’re doing,” he said.
Herald/Review reporter Laura Ory can be reached at 515-4683 or laura.ory@svherald.com.
