The past week or so has seen an increase in the number of Monarch Butterflies passing through my woods but today was a first for me. I was watching at dusk as one after the other, Monarchs came to rest in a low hanging branch of one of our Sugar maple trees. Before it got too dark I tried to photograph them but alas my little digital camera did not have a powerful enough zoom lense to capture the spectacle. By the time it got dark the limb of the tree was covered in the drowsy Monarchs who once in a while would stir, open their wings and flash bright orange in the dying light.

It was quite a cool thing to see and something I've never seen before in all my 40 years.

I once saw something that has remained etched in my mind for years now... a migration stageing of Blue Jays! It was quite surreal for a couple of reasons. It was October and we had checked into a Provincial Park on the shoreline of Lake Erie and were the only campers in the whole park. We pitched our tent and then sat in our lawn chairs with our eyes closed for a bit but I kept noticing that the bird squawking kept getting louder and louder. I watched lazily as blue jays kept landing on the grass throughout the campgrounds. After a while the noise made me laugh and then shortly after I had to elbow my husband awake to see the spectacle that had slowly been created. Throughout the park, barely a spot of green grass could be seen through the sea of blue that was ALL BLUE JAYS! My husband and I just sat there in awe as the jays continued to land around us for almost as far as you could see. At dusk the jays dispersed into the woods and the rest of our camping time never saw such a large stageing of birds as we had seen the afternoon and evening before. We gave eachother a high-five and mentally noted a "cool event" in our birding careers.

Barb

southern Ontario, CANADA