Subject: cardui, atalanta & gamma in DK

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 09:57:07 METDST

Hi Europe!

Yesterday, sunday 9/6, brought huge numbers of migrating butterflies to Aarhus,
where I live.
In one hour, 1500-1600, I had 28 migrating Painted Ladies (Cynthia cardui),
3 migrating Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta). All atalanta's in a fast flight
northwards, but the cardui's were flying in all directions, still the net
flight direction was NNE.
Autographa gamma was also extremely common. I estimate that there were
thousands in just one ha. (10000 square meters). They dissapeared in the
evening but this morning it was present again - new migration?
Today, in 2 minutes, I had 3 migrating cardui's, all heading north!!!!

Why we are having these high numbers of cardui and atalanta? Well, it has
been a wet winter and spring in the south with a lot of foodplants, and
now the main winds are southerlies...? We can just hope that these masses of
butterflies will breed and that their offspring will be heading south in the
autumn. Then there will be something to count!

Watch out for them!

Kind regards
***************************************
* Morten D.D. Hansen                  *
* Dept. of Zoology                    *
* Institute for Biological Sciences   *
* University of Aarhus                *
* DK-8000 Aarhus C                    *
* Denmark                             *
* e-mail: [email-masked]                *
***************************************