Spectacular eastern monarch fall migration this year

[Rob (Robert) Hilton]

At 12:18 PM 09/27/1999 +0000, Paul Cherubini wrote:
>Mark Berman wrote:
>
>> Empirically, it seems as if the
>> numbers of Monarchs flying in the New England area have declined in recent
>> years.
>
>Mark, there is alot of good news coming out of the northeastern USA and
southeastern 
>Canada on the dplex-l discussion list right now. [snipped]

Hi, 

I'm not on the dplex-l but I was at Cape May this past weekend.  Saturday
afternoon between noon and 2 pm there were hundreds of Monarchs passing by
the hawkwatch platform every few minutes.  They almost seemed to be soaring
and kettling (flocking) as if they were Broad-winged Hawks (Bute
platypterus).  It was tremendous!  It was perhaps an order of magnitude
greater than the spectacle I witnessed in and near Washington DC just a
week ago!  There were so many Monarchs on the light south winds that the
relatively few hawks visible were hard to make out.  Quite a few Odonata of
3-4 species were in evidence, many or most were probably migrating (Black
and Carolina Saddlebags and Green Darners are the only names I've learned
so far).  

The winds on Sunday morning were stronger and out of the east.  The Monarch
flight was paltry, but the land birds and hawks were hopping.  

Best, 

Rob

Rob (Robert) Hilton--*robert at csa.com*--Bethesda, Md. (very close to
Washington, DC)