Red admirals nectaring on black cherry, part of the ginormous flight today, 5-4-12, photo by Pat Sutton in Goshen (Cape May County).
This is just a rushed note, hoping to solicit responses from anyone who observed today’s huge flight of red admirals, American ladies, and question marks.
If you can log your reports on our log, that would be great. As usual with the biggest flights, numbers can only be guessed at, but please take your best guess. If possible, please include in the comments column the number of minutes you observed and also the apparent direction of the flight.
Or, if adding numbers to our log is not your thing, you can click on the Comments below and just say something here about your impressions.
And a third option — just send me an email: nacotejackATgmailDOTcom. I am trying to gather the impressions/comments from as many observers as possible.
Where did you see the flight? Which direction were they flying? Can you say something about wind direction perhaps? How about proportions of American ladies and question marks in the mix? How did you try to count? Have you ever seen anything like today’s flight?
Let’s try to document this amazing phenomenon as best we can.
More details later and some photos, if folks can pass them along.
Keep those reports coming! jc
We saw many butterfies today along shore counties of Ocean and Monmouth..Bay Head, Point Pleasant Brick all the way to Eatontown.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed the large amount of butterflies flying around. I wasn’t sure if it was normal, because I’m not an expert in this type of study, but I never recalled seeing so many! I noticed it while taking the bus home after work about 5:30pm, 5/4/12, heading toward North Arlington, NJ. I literally thought one butterfly kept following my bus, because almost every time I looked out the window I saw a butterfly flying quickly in the same direction I was going (northbound). But of course it wasn’t one butterfly stalking me… it was numerous butterflies all over. I had to have seen at least 20 butterflies on my 20min. bus ride. Invasion? Yes, I agree. But, hopefully a good thing. I’ll let the experts decide. Thanks for the blog!
Absolutely incredible..never witnesed anything like it. Went out for a run around 5:30 pm and they were dive bombing my head! It was like something out of a movie..saw a friend/neighbor and she said the same thing. They all seemed to be headed slightly northeast and toward the river. Very cool. When I returned home they’re were at least 4-5 on the chive flowers in the herb garden..
Just moved into our house (Lakewood NJ) this past year so I don’t know if this is usual or not but the woods around our house were infested with butterflies today (5/6). Never saw anything like it. I finally found some time to research what they are and I now know that they were Red Admiral. Incredible. My son and I walked into the woods and they just landed on us and hung on.