Where Are the Butterflies?
You have your butterfly garden in place. All of the required components are ready; caterpillar food plants abound, butterfly nectar plants are blooming, yet as the days go by, no butterflies arrive. You are left like a teenager sitting by the phone (or Facebook page nowadays) wondering what went wrong.
Each year butterfly populations vary due to a variety of factors. Over much of the country the summer of 2009 in particular was bad for butterfly populations due to cool 
spring/early summer temperatures and phenomenal amounts of summer rainfall. Rather than give up on butterfly gardening at times like these, it might just be the time to increase your butterfly friendly plantings so that when the weather improves, your habitat will be ready to help butterfly and caterpillar populations to rebound.
The Basics of Butterfly Gardening as well as Ann Swengel's articles on butterflies suggest some planting strategies for improving and managing your butterfly garden. NABA's growing list of butterfly garden plants gives information to help you choose native plants that butterflies and caterpillars prefer.
The following media links from around the country give some indication of the regional variations in butterfly numbers that were recorded in 2009:
August 30, 2009 - Pat Sutton talks about the decline in the numbers of butterflies seen in southern New Jersey in a newspaper article and You Tube video
August 19, 2009 - Philidelphia area butterfly numbers are down.
August 3, 2009 - NABA Butterfly Count compilers Alan Branhagen and Linda Williams discuss low butterfly populations in the Kansas City area.
July 27, 2009 - A number of northern New Jersey NABA members cite poor weather, decreased habitat, and parasitic wasps for the decline in New Jersey butterfly populations.