Cape May Monarch Monitoring Project: Tagging demos, monarchs coming?

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Tagging demos, monarchs coming?

Our tagging demos are going strong, with 85 in attendance at the demo on Saturday, Sept. 14, and that coming after private, pre-arranged demos for two other groups earlier in the day. We love to share the story of monarchs and their migration, and (we hope you'll forgive us for this) to boast a bit about the work of our project, now in its 30th year.

Naturalists Anya Held and Victoria Cope at Friday's demo.

Our tagging demos will continue every Friday through Sunday at 2 pm at the East Shelter, Cape May Point State Park, through Oct. 13, and then switch to noon at the Cape May Convention Center Oct. 18 through 20. Each demo begins with a brief talk about monarch biology, migration, conservation, and the work of our project. We then break into small groups, each led by one of our naturalists or interns, where visitors can see a monarch up close, watch as we place a tag on the wing, and then a few lucky ones become the launching pad for a just-tagged monarch, sending it on its way to Mexico.

Anya Held shows enthusiastic visitor how to tag a monarch.

We've had plenty of monarchs to tag each day, but we haven't seen the first big influx of the season yet. One of these days we'll see a lot of monarchs flying into Cape May Point, and the first such flight could possibly occur on Sunday, Sept. 15. We received a report of big numbers flying through Ocean City, NJ, this afternoon, which is just 25 miles to our north. The weather forecast for Sunday isn't perfect for monarch migration -- we like to see northwest winds, and the prediction for Sunday is for southwest winds and a chance of showers. But you never know, we'll be out there watching, for sure.

And we'll be out at Cape May Point State Park at 2 pm Sunday, that's a guarantee. We'll be talking monarchs and tagging a few for our visitors, and we hope that many of our readers will be there, too.