I was able to see an impromptu monarch tagging demonstration on Sunday in Cape May. Their Monarch Monitoring Project has been conducted since 1991 and they’ve tagged tens of thousands of migrant monarchs in the 15 years since.
The butterflies are kept in an envelope in a cooler while waiting to be tagged. In this pic the naturalist is demonstrating how a small amount of the butterfly’s scales are removed (with a lovely painted fingernail) in order to make room for the tagging sticker to be attached.
She explained that each tag has a unique number and the address where to send the butterfly (or the tag) should it be recovered. 3M makes the stickers just for tagging and they don’t hinder the butterfly’s ability to fly at all.
Each butterfly is weighed and measured and a general assesment of its body condition is made. All of this info is recorded along with the tag number. With that, the butterfly is ready to be released and to resume its journey to Mexico. All that is needed is a cute little girl with nimble fingers.
The hand off. Ready…
Set…

The monarch lingered for a moment or two on the little girl’s palm before flying to the shrubbery nearby to warm in the sun.

Yearly counts and census info, as well as a brief history of the project, is available from NJ Audubon at this link. Certainly worth a read if you’re interested in more information.

Yesterday’s weather was gorgeous and I had just a few hours to wander around with my binoculars and camera. I arrived too late to see the Sandhill Crane (what is that doing on the East coast?) that went by the hawkwatch (pictured above), but I did get to see plenty of sharpies, a harrier or two, a few merlins, and two young bald eagles. The birds stream by overhead and disappear past the lighthouse and Delaware Bay to the south.
In addition to migrating hawks, yellow-rumps and tree swallows were everywhere, as were the monarchs. The goldenrod in the dunes surrounding Cape May Point State Park was covered with them. Dragonflies were also on the move yesterday, Black Saddlebags being the most visible.
One of my favorite places in Cape May are the fields and wet woods of Hidden Valley. Often I’m alone in my wanderings there and rather than watching the hawks swirling high overhead, can see them here hunting the migrant flocks of flickers and warblers and sparrows. They say that many of the hawks that fly past the lighthouse don’t necessarily head out over the bay immediately, instead they *circle back* and cross somewhere else. Hidden Valley and Higbee Beach provide the habitat and birds that fuel their journey. Pictured above is one of a few banding stations around Cape May where they lure in migrants to trap and band them. They were set up in the adjacent field and I spent a good deal of time peering over the hedgerow to see what they tempted into their nets.
I wasn’t able to decide if what I was seeing at the top of that pole in this really poor pic was a real bird or not. Its head moved like a real bird, but I couldn’t fugire out why a hawk would spend so much time so close to the banding station and the mist nets. I know sometimes a fake owl is used to lure hawks at a hawkwatch site, but not if they’re ever used that way at a banding set-up. Maybe Laura O. knows? At one point there was a bald eagle overhead and I was hoping it might come in for a closer look at the bait, but it didn’t.
Each step along the shrubby fields kicked up grasshoppers and small flocks of sparrows ahead of me. Monarchs and honey bees fed in the wildflowers and impossible-to-identify warblers teased me with their scolding notes. Buckeyes led the way along the path, flitting from patch to patch in the sunlight. I often hear Barred Owls calling from the woods here, but yesterday they were quiet.
My last stop for the afternoon was The Meadows just north of the lighthouse. The water levels were really high, so any hopes for lingering shorebirds (not that I could ID them anyway) were lost. The ponds had an awful lot of Mute Swans and many mallards. I also imagined a few Gadwall. The highlight there was a snowy egret doing its crazy dance as it hunted – such comical birds. I love to visit Cape May, but hate to leave. The weather in late September and early October is perfect and the crowds are gone from the beaches. I left around 5 pm, expecting an easy 2 hour drive home, but instead didn’t get in until nearly 9. Like any good trip to South Jersey, it had to end with an hour and a half traffic jam on the parkway because of an accident. A lousy end to an otherwise beautiful day.

This is how I embarrassed myself today: wandering around Cape May Bird Observatory’s bookstore I overheard a woman asking Pete Dunne to sign the book that she just bought. He doesn’t mind signing books and has signed a few of his books for me in the past. Pete’s a familiar face around Cape May and leads weekly bird walks and hangs out at the hawk watch. Easy to see famous author.

So.

I decide I’m going to buy that new shorebird guide he has out that I’ve been hearing so much about. It’s supposed to be a great book and I need all the help I can get with shorebirds. I figure I might as well buy it now, seeing as he’s here and can sign it for me.

Anyone sensing the problem yet?

Pete Dunne didn’t write the great new shorebird guide, only I didn’t realize that until after I asked him to sign it.

Duh!

I was kidding him about how tiresome it must be to be signing books all the time as I handed mine over. I honestly had no clue what he was talking about when he said, “But that isn’t my book!” Huh?

I can only imagine the multiple shades of red I turned. Good sport that he is, he signed it anyway and with a smile. I suppose I should have gone back and bought his book for him to sign, but I really wanted that shorebird guide!

Summer’s officially over – we took the awnings off the outside of the house today. We have them on the west side windows, and this year had them recovered for the first time in fifteen or so years and added awnings to the south-facing windows as well. Having awnings on the south side of the house kind of defeats the purpose of calling this a sunporch, but the room gets blazing hot in the summer and I worry for the bunnies who live out there without any AC. The awnings make the house feel dark like a cave, but at least it’s a somewhat cooler cave. I’m glad to see them go in the fall and welcome the sunlight, especially in the late afternoon when it streams into the kitchen and living room. The outside of the house looks very plain without the pretty blue and white striped awnings, though.

Unfortunately, all that light coming into the house makes the dust that much more visible. So today was window-cleaning day. I hate cleaning windows and would happily pay someone hundreds of dollars to not have to do it. Some women like cleaning, but there is no joy in it for me. I like a clean house, just wish I didn’t have to do the work to keep it that way. We’ve been avoiding doing it because of the expense, but finally bought new blinds to replace the ones we had on the porch. I’m not so sure I really like these white ones with the wood paneling in the room, but the *fake* wood grain ones won’t match and look really cheap. The real wood ones, like the ones we replaced, are so expensive that I wouldn’t even consider them! Anway, I’m glad now to have clean windows (on the porch at least; that’s as far as we got today) and new blinds that aren’t covered with dust. The bunnies ought to appreciate that, too.

The next order of business for that room – not tomorrow, I’m heading to Cape May for the day – will be to scrub down the paneling and dust the bookshelves. My old computer desk needs to find a new home and we have to start thinking about replacing the front door and doing something with the ceiling tiles. Both are looking a bit tired. Speaking of tired, I’m off to bed, with the hope that I’ll drag myself up early enough to make it to Cape May by 10 am.

This park is not in my neighborhood, but I drive by it each day on my way to and from work. Rather than taking one of the state highways, I drive this *country* road past horse farms and apple orchards. Did you know that we grow racehorses in the Garden State, in addition to produce? One day soon I’m going to stop and take pics of the horses that I ogle each morning as I pass in my mad rush to get to work. Buddy and I visited this park last Saturday; it was raining, but I had wanted to have a look at the wildflower meadow and see what bugs I could find there. A large part of the park is given to athletic fields, and part is even set aside for model airplane flying, but the edges are mostly wild. Fall is a nice time for sparrows and the more deserted farm fields often have deer and northern harriers. The sunflowers in the pic above had been catching my eye for a few days as I drove past; I wonder if anyone can identify what type they are. All of the flowers in that pic are growing on one stem of the plant, most of the plants were still pointing straight to the sky, but this one had fallen to ground level. If you enlarge the pic you can also see these funny little fruits that look like tomatoes – would love to know what they are!
Buddy and I found three or four black and yellow spiders in the wet grass, and I’m certain that we walked through a few webs without realizing they were there. This one has a juicy skipper in its clutches.
The meadow was full of common milkweed gone to seed and goldenrod covered in monarchs, as well as lots of those pretty moths that Susan identified for me earlier in the week. There were also some purple coneflowers still blooming, but the goldenrod was the place to be, as far as the bugs were concerned.

A few other bloggers have posted some pics of their neighborhoods or will soon. Check out this post from Body, Soul, and Spirit. Lene at Counting Petals has posted many pics from her home base in Vermont. Also, Egret’s Nest is accepting requests here. Stop by and enjoy the tour.

No new bunny pics of my own to share this week, so instead I’ll share this one and a link (just click on the pic) to more like this one. I don’t know know the story behind the pics, only that these were passed around a few months back on PetBunny.

Any ideas what these bugs are? I found them on Saturday at a local park and also on the goldenrod at home. I can’t put a name to them and it’s making me a little (more) batty (than usual). I spent a wonderful few hours looking through the images on Bug Guide, but found nothing to match. I don’t have a good insect guide, so I usually turn to online sources when I’m stumped. Bug Guide is useful for someone like me who doesn’t know bugs – a neat feature is that you can search by the flower or plant that an insect is found on. A search for goldenrod brings up a hungry community of insects. None who look like these, unfortunately. I tried browsing through the images using those scary scientific terms that I never learned properly in school, but didn’t get very far that way, either. I just don’t know enough. So before I write them and request an ID on what is probably a common insect, I thought I’d throw the question out to you guys. Anyone know what these are? They’re very pretty and have wings.

Susan Gets Native asked for pictures from the street I live on, but I felt a little funny taking pictures of my neighbor’s houses, so I decided to extend my search for snapshots to the whole neighborhood. The purple mums are decorating my front stoop (yes, my parents were from Jersey City, NJ – does anyone else call it a *stoop*?
This is a view from the street beside our pond. Fairly boring, but we have lots of old trees and lots of kids in the neighborhood now. The older people are downsizing and moving closer to their adult kids and young families are moving in.
Our newest neighbor on the street is our family doctor. He bought this house for 1.9 million dollars. Can you imagine? A few houses on the street have been rebuilt lately – this house used to be a ranch, like the one you can see the corner of to the left, but the prior family bought the house for $600,000 and tore it all down, except for the garage. They rebuilt it to this and less than five years later sold it for more than 3 times that amount.
This is our church, technically in the next town, set on a hill. I love the steeple, and on quiet days I can hear the bells ringing.
I think this is considered a creek, but it seems too wide to be called that. It borders our town and the next and often hosts ducks, herons, egrets, and terns. It’s a popular crabbing spot, but isn’t our usual place. Just to the left of the pic is the local army base and all its communication equipment, which I was afraid to photograph.
Around the corner from our house is this little farm field, usually planted with raspberries and blackberries. The deer fencing is new. Buddy and I often walk the edge of this field to look for the red-tail hawks that like to hang out in those trees in the distance. There is a little creek and farm pond down there and it’s a nice spot for warblers and frogs and mosquitos. And an occasional fox.
My favorite place to shop, just down the street. It used to be just a little farm stand surrounded by fields and orchards, but now it’s a gourmet market that sells beautiful plants and fresh, mostly local produce, plus anything else imaginable related to flowers or food. There’s soccer and baseball fields and a playground, and a wonderful old farmhouse that has been preserved by the town.

Susan also suggested that I take pics of the house I grew up in and the schools I went to, which I think would be kind of fun. I may take a drive to the old neighborhood this weekend to share some memories of growing up.

Today was my volunteer day at the Sandy Hook Bird Observatory. This is the view to the right of our center. Are you wondering why I’m posting this bad photo of Canada Geese? Well… I had a surprise visit today from Patrick, another SHBO volunteer and the face behind The Hawk Owl’s Nest and his buddy Mike from 10,000 Birds. Patrick was giving Mike a tour of the Hook. Mike made a comment that he’s not sure I bird anymore because I never blog about birds. So I felt obligated to post this pic of some birds. Oh, and about 10 minutes after you guys left, Tom B. called to report a possible MacGillivray’s Warbler – not sure if that panned out, but you know Tom’s penchant for finding the rarest of birds!
Back to the photo tour. Laura from Vitamin Sea and Lene from Counting Petals wanted to see water views. This is the view from the front porch of the bird observatory; technically, you have to walk off the porch and cross the road to see the color in the poison ivy or whatever that is growing at the base of the rocks, but Sandy Hook Bay is gorgeous. Today when I arrived it was cloudy and raining and there were thousands of swallows migrating low over the water and high up in the sky. There were also lots of Monarchs migrating today and nectaring on the goldenrod that blooms along the dunes.
I ventured to the ocean side to get a pic of the water and sand, so that Lene could imagine sinking her toes into it. There were a lot of people out with their dogs once the storm had passed and I enjoyed watching them play in the water. I made the mistake of sitting down in the sand to take pics and the big galoot in this picture came bounding up to me and mugged me with his wet face.
On the way home I visited the Twin Lights lighthouse in Navesink. I haven’t been there since grade school, even though I drive by at least once a week.
This pic is of the old 9 foot bivalve lens that had been used to guide ships into New York Harbor and was one of the brightest navigational lights used in the US. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1949 and a smaller, and much less powerful commemorative light replaced it in 1962. Taken from inside the working *twin* light. Going up the spiral staircase was much easier than coming down! Dizzy city! View from the top of the lighthouse, Sandy Hook is that long spit of land jutting out into the horizon. I enjoyed taking these snapshots today and will post some others in the coming days. Feel free to add a request!