The Monarch Monitoring Project is a long-term study on monarch migration through Cape May, NJ. It is a part of the New Jersey Audubon Research Department, and closely affiliated with the Cape May Bird Observatory.

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

A Cold Front is Coming!

Our blog has moved to a new location: https://njaudubon.org/category/monarch-monitoring/ For those of you who still connect to this page however, here is a blog post for Sept. 23, 2021: A vital element to the Cape May Monarch Monitoring Project is our road census, which gives us a method to compare the numbers of monarchs around the Cape from week to week and from year to year. A member of our team drives a designated 5 mile route 3 times daily at a slow speed, counting every monarch seen along the way. Our first three weeks of census are complete, and the numbers verify our hunch that the monarch numbers have been a bit below average up to this point of the season. This isn’t really a surprise, since we’ve had a lot of warm weather and winds from the south or from the east. Monarchs usually migrate when the winds are blowing from the north, and a westerly component to the wind often brings more monarchs toward the coast, and then down into Cape May Point. In recent years we’ve had a lot of unfavorable winds during the first half of September, and it’s been a while since we have seen many monarchs on those days. This might be about to change. A big cold front is predicted to arrive on Thursday, bringing a lot of rain, but clearly out on Friday, the first of four consecutive days when northwest winds are predicted. These are the conditions that frequently bring big numbers of monarchs into Cape May. Can we guarantee lots of monarchs during the next few days? Of course not, nature isn’t ever fully predictable, but we’re hopeful, and I can guarantee that our team will be out in the field, ready to count, study, tag, and teach about monarchs, however many there may be.

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