This year, the view has become more lackluster leaving her to spend more of her time indoors.
"Something's happened here," Kaberline said. "It's like somebody told the butterflies that the sky is falling and to keep away from here."
For the first time in the 19 years since she's moved next to the butterfly grove, the expected fluttering creatures are nowhere to be seen. It is a barren sight that has become almost as amazing as when the butterflies take to the trees in swarms of splendor, according to Kaberline.
And it's a disturbing phenomenon that is not going unnoticed. "This is a prime example of what is happening to butterfly sites in North America, and if we don't act now to protect them we are going to lose an important and vital national environmental treasure," said Sheila Boone, a wildlife photographer from Grover Beach who is also busy heading efforts to build a living museum on the Central Coast dedicated to the study and preservation of the Western,Monarch.
On Friday, Boone will hold a press conference at the Cayucos site that is expected to attract media from around the country to launch an international fund raising campaign aimed at saving the butterfly preserve.
"Our goal is to save one of the few endangered Western Monarch sites remaining in the United States and Canada " Boone said.
California is the only state that regularly shelters over-wintering Western Monarchs with about 200 sites along the Pacific Coast. And depending upon which scientist you speak with, between 12 and 25 major sites exist only on the Central Coast.eucalyptus grove at Pismo Beach is the largest of these with an estimated 100,000 Western Monarchs congregating to the area annually followed in second by the Cayucos site, which attracts between 50,000 and 60,000 of the winged wonders between October and March. But recent estimates indicate numbers for Cayucos have plummeted to one-tenth of what it was last year.
"We're looking at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 butterflies max this year, which is a severe drop from last year's figures said Kingston Leong, entomology professor at Cal Poly.
Finding a reason as to why the number of butterflies to the Cayucos site have taken such a drastic fall is very difficult
Scientists studying other similar sites have placed the blame for dwindling numbers on a combination of urban development and increased pesticide use on ag land. At Cayucos, the problem appears to be compounded by internal problems, the most urgent being the condition of the grove itself.
According to Leong, the Cayucos site is suffering from old age. Many of the trees clustered together - a mixture of cypress and eucalyptus - have become a messy sight of broken and dead limbs upon which the butterflies congregate. Others are showing signs of possible pitch pine canker, a deadly fungal disease that has recently made its way to the Central Coast leaving behind a trail of dead trees.
"A combination of these problems will affect wind patterns that move through the grove, and, if the butterflies are exposed to that environment, they will abandon the site," Leong said.
And while that seems to be the case, Leong says that it's not too late to save the site and regenerate it as a major migratory habitat.
"We do not know what attracts. butterflies to a particular grove, but we do know through research we have conducted how to keep them there once they've established themselves," he said.
The only way, however, to perpetuate the site for future generations is to make an open effort to not only purchase the privately owned property that sits upon approximately six lots, but also develop a management plan that will oversee the habitat. Boone is expected to make an announcement offering intentions to do both at Friday's press conference.
Per the request of the owners, the location of the site has been kept secret along with the asking price, estimated at several hundred thousand dollars. That money, which Boone hopes to generate from businesses and large corporations, will not only be used to keep the property out of any future development plans but secure Cal Poly's Biological Science Department help in developing and overseeing management of the site.
Leong, who will head the management task, said efforts will include cutting down old and damaged trees and replacing them with healthy seedlings and other butterfly enticing vegetation such as milkweed, the leaves of which the Western Monarch uses to lay its eggs.
It is news that has been greeted enthusiastically by Kaberline who not only longs for those peaceful afternoons when she can once again return to her porch and enjoy one of nature's most fascinating creatures, but see that enjoyment passed on to future generations.
"This is the perfect place for them to be" she said. "But they need protection - they need a voice."