September 2020
There's a lot going on in Cape May during September! Migration is in full swing, always peaking when NW winds blow after the passage of a cold front. Fall 2020 brought us more favorable migration weather than we had experienced in recent years, much to our delight. I'm mostly featuring monarch butterflies and songbirds on this page, but raptors, shorebirds, dragonflies, and more are part of the frantic redistribution southward of the biomass of the northern hemisphere. It's always a glorious month for nature enthusiasts in Cape May.
A collection of fall warblers. Above, left to right: Prairie Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Palm Warbler
Below, left to right: Yellow Warbler, Northern Parula, Blackpoll Warbler, Cape May Warbler.
Red-eyed Vireo (left) and Gray Catbird (right) both enjoy pokeweed berries (above).
This Masked Booby, a tropical seabird, caused quite a stir when it spent a day on the jetty at the entrance to the Cape May harbor.
Drama we see repeated fairly often in summer and fall: A Bald Eagle chasing and harrassing an Osprey, usually succeeding in the theft of the Osprey's fish.
Wildflowers abound during September in Cape May, providing food for butterflies such as Cloudless Sulphur (top center) and Common Buckeye (above right), along with thousands upon thousands of migrating monarchs (below).
September at Cape May Point State Park
Clockwise from top left: Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Common Nighthawk, Red-breasted Nuthatch.
