We are solidly in the fall weather patterns now, with daily chance of rain and night temp dropping in the 50’s.
This is the time of the season when the Eastern seaboard annual Monarch Butterfly migration that fly along the Atlantic coastal route funnels through NJ’s Cape May Point in their southward journey, and make their flight over the Delaware Bay to DelMarVa (I don’t know if there is a central location where they end up in one of those states).
My garden is too far inland and closer to the Delaware River to actually see a kaleidoscope of them fly through. And I think the Monarch butterflies that are born in my garden probably splits and head in 3 different directions, depending on their genetically imprinted memory/instinct passed down from their... mother? father too?—
- flying east/southeast over the Pine Barrens to join the coastal tributary group,
- flying south along the Delaware River either on the NJ side or the Pennsylvania side to reach Delaware, and
- flying west across the river and across Pennsylvania to join the much larger main central southward migration, heading directly to Texas.
I imagine there are sub streams within the Atlantic coastal migration route that fly over bays and islands, or stay on the mainland coastline as they fly south.
I have heard that on reaching Florida, the coastal migration divide into groups that
- fly along the Gulf of Mexico to joint the migration in Texas and Mexico (where they divide into group that stay in Texas and group that make the final leg of the journey to Mexican wintering grounds via the Texas funnel)
- Stay and overwinter in Florida
- Make the grand flight over Gulf of Mexico directly to the Yucatán peninsula
I was looking out of the window yesterday when it was sunny and breezy, wondering if there are any Monarchs left in my garden, and (as so often happens) the garden “answered” — I spotted a Monarch butterfly male slowly flapping his wings as he clung to and sipped from a bright yellow Jerusalem artichoke/sunchoke flower swaying in the wind in the front yard. The patch is in full bloom right now (and at least 40 feet from any milkweed, so I don’t if it was a freshly eclosed butterfly that grew up in my garden, or one that flew in and stopped by on his way south).