Date: 10/06/2015

Number: 50

At Cherry Cove Overlook near Mile Marker 416 on the Blue Ridge Parkway (elevation 4327 feet), I only saw 2 Monarchs fluttering overhead in a four hour period. The wind was out of the north. (Last year, one day at the end of September, we counted 95 Monarchs in 15 minutes, a rate of about 400 in an hour.) All during the day I counted 24 or so Cloudless Sulphers zipping over. Also, about a dozen migrating hawks. Later in the day at a lower elevation location on the Parkway, the Mills River Overlook, I was watching a Turkey Vulture in my binoculars, and into the field of view appeared a huge cloud of twinkling orange somethings. I'm pretty sure they were Monarchs, maybe 40 or 50 (or more) flying several hundred feet overhead and invisible to the naked eye. The fellow beside me couldn’t find them but thought they might be hummingbirds, except they weren’t in any formation.

Asheville, NC

Latitude: 35.6 Longitude: -82.6

Observed by: Mickey
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