Monarch migration

September was a magical month in Cape May Point! The Monarch butterflies usually migrate through the beginning of October but this year the "big" migration took place 2 weeks earlier in mid September. I was working on Saturday 9/18 and when I got home that evening I read the Cape May Bird Observatory blog enteries for the day about the Monarch watch. The estimate was that they were 1600 monarchs per minute flying around the Point. The blog mentioned they were roosting overnight at several sites and expected to fly off to Delaware on Sunday if the winds were right. After all the little butterfly has to fly across the Delaware Bay which is a distance of 17 miles. Well, I knew where I wanted to be on Sunday morning. I sure didn't want to be at work so I called and asked to be cancelled - not put on call - cancelled. So I am up and getting dressed the next morning at about 6AM when the phone rings. What GREAT news -I'm cancelled and can go play all day, taking pictures and marveling at Mother Nature miracles. Over I went to the point to find the roosts. They were AWESOME! Then off to the Hawk Watch platform where at about 8:30 we start seeing butterflies everywhere - over the beach, the dunes, in the trees, on the flowers and when the winds shifted off they went flying over the Delaware Bay until they were tiny specs and then you couldn't see them anymore. About 1 1/2 hrs later we heard when they started arriving and flying past a Hawk watch platform in Delaware. Never have I seen anything like this. Words can not really describe the feeling you had but it made you glad to be alive to witness it.