Date: 09/19/2010

Number: 1

Forrest Rowland of Cape Henlopen Hawkwatch reports:

Something quite incredible that began yesterday morning at about 7:45am in Cape May, NJ, and ended over Delaware shores sometime just after noon.

At approximately 8:45am yesterday morning, Doug Gochfeld (swing
counter Cape May Bird Observatory) called me up and urgingly requested that I get myself to the bunker...or else. I immediately thought that an early falcon
flight was starting! His next sentence was, "The monarchs here are crazy". I
smirked inwardly (and outwardly) and told myself I was not really interested in spending time during what *might* be the only day I take off of work this week up on the platform counting butterflies. Sure, we take down monarch numbers here and there, when a big movement is going on, but...it is a HAWKwatch, after all.

I was birding with Cyrus Moqtaderi at Prime Hook when I got a second call 20 minutes later. It was Doug again. Cameron Cox and Michael O'brien were there. Doug implored that I get over to the hawkwatch and start counting butterflies. I said the equivalent of "yeah yeah yeah, yada yada yada". I heard Cameron yelling at me in the background. Michael got on the phone and...I quote: "Forrest, get over there. This is like getting 500 Golden Eagles. You've GOT to see this." We decided, given that we were notified by 3 of the best birders in Cape May County (and the country), that we
should get ourselves over to the Hawkwatch Platform. Cyrus and I arrived at the Cape Henlopen Hawkwatch platform at 10:15am to something on the magnitude of 50 Monarchs a minute. By 11:00am I was counting 100's of monarchs PER BINOCULAR VIEW at any given instant all up and down the beach!!!! It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I will never forget.

Looking South, North, straight up in the air, one could not avoid seeing thousands of Monarchs pouring forth over the Ocean! For an hour, we marveled, and spoke of similar amazing migrations. We estimated an discussed and smiled. We forgot about Falcons and Hawks and whatnot. We stood, watching, smiling some more. Onlookers on the beach were watching from under umbrellas. People in parking lots carrying coolers, and chairs, were watching. Everyone that had seen, was watching.

The spectacle slowed and was mere memory by 12:30pm, give or take. Things
returned the constant trickle of some few hundred Monarchs per hour. It was
over nearly as quickly as it began.

I spoke to Doug Gochfeld this morning. The rough estimate from Cape May was that 1.4 million Monarchs had migrated over the point between then hours of 7 and 9am. At the Cape Henlopen Hawkwatch we had seen some 550,000 - 600,000 of that. Reports from Rehoboth Beach/Gordon's Pond were upwards of 150,000.

The rest came ashore between the two points, delighting and confusing and astonishing beach-goers, and hawkwatchers, as they went. I have seen Monarchs migrating each Fall for 4 years. I have seen them waft and weave in and out of view; overhead, over flowers, and thought these sights happy and amusing, but never impressive. I hereby beg forgiveness.

Good Bir....ummm...everything,

Cape Henlopen, DE

Latitude: 38.8 Longitude: -75.1

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