Date: 10/04/2011

Number: 600

Denise Gibbs of Chincoteague Monarch Monitoring Project reports from Assateague Island, VA:

The monarchs migrated down the beach today in a continuous stream from 8:15am to 6:15pm. The average was about 600 per hour. Once they arrived at the narrow section of the island (about 100 yards between ocean and bay), they stopped to nectar on seaside goldenrod or they turned around and headed back over to the causeway. One side of the causeway has a freshwater impoundment and the other has a saltmarsh. The causeway is elevated so monarchs stayed low in the bayberry thicket at the edge of the marsh, completely out of the wind. The grounsel-tree (bushes) in this spot were loaded with nectaring monarchs all day. This is where I could safely tag and release them, without risking having them blow backwards out over the ocean. However it wasn't so safe for me because if I stood too long in one place, I would sink down about a foot into the soft mud, making me an easy target for the saltmarsh mosquitoes (the things we do for Monarch Watch . . .)

The winds remained from the NW all day, usually from 10-15mph, but picking up speed to about 20mph for an hour or two. By 6:30 there were some sizeable roosts forming along the causeway near the NPS visitor center in the bayberry bushes that had survived Irene, and in the bare branches of those that did not. I estimated about 5,000 monarchs in 7 separate roosts (that I could see from the road), but there were likely more in the dense thickets on the small islands in the freshwater impoundments, since I saw monarchs flying into them at dusk.

This was one of those days that left lasting impressions, both in my memory and on my memory card. Monarchs, buckeyes, green darners, black saddlebags, Carolina saddlebags, wandering gliders, spot-winged gliders, Peregrine falcons, merlins, harriers, bald eagles, osprey, tree swallows, ruddy turnstones, black-bellied plovers, semi-palmated sandpipers, palm warblers, yellow-rumped warblers, cormorants, herons, egrets, terns, gulls, sanderlings, yellowlegs, oystercatchers, and pelicans all graced the island with their beauty and lifted the spirits of those few who opened their eyes to see it.

Assateague Island, VA

Latitude: 38 Longitude: -75.3

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