Date: 10/08/2010

Number: 1

Oct 8, 7am - 12:30pm, Chincoteague NWR, Assateague Island, VA

This is the day I've been waiting for! At sunrise there was no dew, the temp was 58 degrees with full sun and wind NNW at 4mph. As soon as the sunlight touched them, the monarchs were off their roosts and in the air. They soared from a few feet off the ground to about 30-50' high. Some flew higher and I could see them only with binoculars. There was a constant stream of monarchs drifting by (what a sight!) until about 9am, when the wind became WNW at 8mph. Monarchs continued to migrate but flew just over the waves as they broke on the shore. They faced the direction they wanted to go (southwest), but they flew sideways to the south, flapping all the time to keep themselves from going out over the ocean. I sat on the primary dune and watched each one with binoculars and none that I watched went out over the ocean. I did a few site counts and the average was 27 monarchs per minute. The migration continued like this until 11:45am when there was an abrupt halt to the wind. It became very still and then monarchs started dropping down into the seaside goldenrod to nectar. At 12:15pm the wind had shifted and was WSW at 9mph. Within minutes there were hundreds of cloudless sulphurs swirling around the seaside goldenrod. The monarchs and the sulphurs were nectaring by the hundreds in the seaside goldenrod areas. Now at 2:30, the wind is SSW, which should keep all the monarchs here the remainder of the day. I am headed back now to look for tagged monarchs in the goldenrods, and to tag some of my own.

Oct 8, 3pm - 5:30pm, Chincoteague NWR, Assateague Island, VA

Birders always hope for a "fallout" of warblers during spring and fall migration. I have seen a few fallouts at places like Cape May NJ and Dolly Sods, WVA . It is a wondrous event you remember forever. In all my years here at Chincoteague, I had never seen a fallout of monarchs--- until this afternoon.

Every flower stalk of every seaside goldenrod plant in the interdune area along Tom's Cove had multiple monarchs nectaring on it. I have never seen that many monarchs nectaring in one place at one time. One year early in my study I had about 10,000 monarchs roosting in a wild black cherry tree. But today in the interdune area, there may have been several hundred thousand monarchs. I walked one mile along the shore of Tom's Cove and still did not reach the end of the nectaring monarchs.

I am glad I had several witnesses and that I took photos until my memory card filled. I searched for tagged monarchs but didn't see any. The monarchs were so intent on feeding that I was able to capture them by hand, tag them and put them back on the flowers. I was so focused on the monarchs that I didn't realize I had an entourage of visitors who were filming and photographing the process. People who had never seen a monarch were just in awe. Well, so were the rest of us! The event sparked lots of questions, so when all my tags were used up, I sat down in the sand and spoke about monarchs until everyone's questions were answered. I will never forget this day. . .
And, I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow when winds will be out of the NW.

Courtesy of Monarch Watch

Assateague Island, VA

Latitude: 38 Longitude: -75.3

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