Date: 10/11/2025

Number: 243

Arrived to the tip of Point Pelee National Park 07:20. I would’ve arrived earlier but the Park gates do not open until 07:00 and this is how long it takes for me to get to the tip. Sunrise at 07:38. As at 07:20: Temperature 13°C, windchill 8°C, Humidity 77%, dewpoint 9°C, barometric pressure 102 kPa and rising, wind NNW at 16 km/h with gusts to 33 km/h. Headed immediately to the east side where we had observed roosts the night before. We had run out of daylight and I figured there might be more Monarchs to count. Discovered many of the individuals from the previous evening still in their roosts. A few individuals were not where we had left them. There was evidence in the park and on the beach of a light rain overnight. I was in the process of counting the roosted individuals when the sun rose and Monarchs started to open their wings to the sun. Encountered some visitors on a birding hike and showed them the roost of 18. They were intrigued. By 08:00 I had counted 94 roosted individuals when the first ones started leaving, so I switched to counting the ones leaving. They were rising up over the East Beach slowly circling higher and heading directly south over Lake Erie. There was a nice breeze from the north for them to glide on. All individuals left separately, they were leaving from multiple trees all along the east beach as far north as the outlet to the beach that leads from Darlene‘s bench. For accuracy, counting was done as the Monarchs passed by my stationary location.
Here is a brief breakdown to give you an idea of the rate. Counting done by periodically texting myself, which is how I am able to give you the accurate times:
08:00 25
08:10 165
08:20 204
08:30 216
08:40 227
08:52 230
09:08 234
09:17 235
09:32 236
Number 237 headed to the interior and briefly alighted on an Aster (all Asters waning here.) Perhaps long enough for a quick drink(?) before it disappeared out onto the west path.
09:53 239
10:08 242
10:29 big beautiful male observed leaving his roost to land on a leaf on the sand, did not extend his proboscis. Using my binoculars, I was able to observe that he had a chunk out of his left forewing tip. As I approached, he headed to the interior. Lots of Blue Jays in the area and other birds. He could have been recently injured.

N.B. Near the end of the count, there were three individuals observed leaving the tip attempting to fly southwest toward Pelee Island furiously flapping against where the wind wanted to carry them south. South is the open lake with the next land mass being Ohio. Southwest offers the opportunity to hop skip across the islands to Ohio. The last three Monarchs that I observed in my count were not observed leaving the tip.

It was nice to be able to share with the people who were on a bird hike with Jeremy.
I am calling this Peak Migration as the majority of the Monarchs were on the move after having left their roosts. It should be noted however, that the Overnight Roost report for the evening of October 10 was definitely an undercount as all the individuals in this report were roosted at sunrise.
See how many you can find in the enclosed photo. Don’t forget to look at the brown curled up leaves of the Hackberry(4), the easy ones are spread out in the Mulberry. Look closely as some individuals overlap each other.

Leamington, ON

Latitude: 41.9 Longitude: -82.5

Observed by: Laura
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