09 Nov Cape May Monarch Migration Party
A car slowed to a stop beside me as I stepped off the pine riddled dune at Cape May Point in New Jersey, a dune that effectively blocked the small-craft warning winds that ripped down the beach on the opposite side.
“Anybody in there?” the driver asked.
“No, it’s pretty dead,” I answered.
It was my first night in town and I assumed that like me, the driver sought fall migrating birds. I crossed the street and settled onto the upper deck of my rental to scan the tree line. There wasn’t even the slightest flutter as the sky made its final transition from navy to black, but several other cars slowed alongside that same dune trail before darkness fell.
The procession of cars began again the following evening. One set of explorers even parked in the lane long enough to scan the darkening pines with flashlights before heading on their way. I’d already discovered that this was a town intimately aware of its nature and I began to wonder if perhaps there was a resident owl. I grabbed my own flashlight and crossed the street, but found no owl.
The procession continued the following evening, and the next. Golf carts, bikers, dog-walkers and strollers all joined the parade. I’d watched a Cooper’s hawk zoom up the trail one morning; and the sky above had filled with merlin, peregrine falcon, and sharp-shinned hawks one windy afternoon, but not a single avian visitor joined the evening parade.
The following day, I returned home to a crowd. The procession had halted and people filled the trail, spilling out to cover most of the street. Spotting scopes, binoculars, telephoto lenses and cell phones were all trained up into the pines. I traced their gazes into the trees. A cloud of orange quivered in the wind, hundreds if not thousands of delicate wings folded within protective pine needles.
Monarch butterflies. I should’ve figured it out before; I’d seen nearly as many butterfly nets as binoculars roaming the trails. I’d watched one woman scoop a migrant from a goldenrod, pointing out its male scent glands to me before she measured it, placed a tiny sticker on one wing and urged it on its way. The migrating monarchs were late on their way to Mexico this year, she’d informed me as we watched the newly tagged butterfly alight on a different goldenrod, but their journey was well underway now.
Back at my rental the next morning, there was already a monarch jam at the dune by first light. Respectfully hushed voices speculated whether this roost or one further down was larger, and which would be first drenched in dawn’s golden rays. I didn’t know whether the butterflies would trickle away as individuals sufficiently warmed; or if it would be a mass exodus, a blur of orange wings blotting out the blue of the sky. The answer proved somewhere in between. As individuals warmed into the sky some moved on while others lingered in the pines. The humans below similarly rearranged; some staying, some going, new arrivals filling emptied spaces as the light crept down to street level.
The next night I joined the butterfly-seeker’s parade, working my way home along the length of the road that followed the dune. The butterflies were spread through the pines in myriad smaller roosts, each hosting a corresponding group of human observers. One woman beckoned me to see three tagged monarchs on one branch. Another group called me over to see what they judged to be the largest roost of the evening. That night the pines at my own dune trail proved bare, but that was OK. I’d discovered the secret of the roving monarch migration party.
No Comments