As the Cape May Songbird Stopover Banding Project entered its fifth week (September 14th–20th), our team was met with a significant change in the weather. A series of cloudy, rainy days settled in, including two days where conditions prevented us from keeping nets open for the full six-hour duration of…...
Cape May Bird Observatory Songbird Banding Week 3: Aug 31- Sept 6, 2025
After an incredibly active and productive second week, the third week of the Songbird Stopover Project took on a noticeably quieter pace. The shift in pace was largely due to persistent southerly winds that didn’t favor migration into the South Cape May Meadows, where the project is based. These less-than-ideal…...
Cape May Songbird Stopover Project Internship
Cape May Songbird Stopover Project Internship New Jersey Audubon Research Department María Jesús Sepulveda Fall 2024 Cape May Songbird Stopover Project Staff, November 6, 2024 First Days on the Job My first day working for the Songbird Stopover Project began on September 8th at the South Cape May Meadows tagging…...
Infection in Monarchs (O.e.) Migrating through Cape May Point, NJ
Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (O.e.) Infection in Monarchs Migrating through Cape May Point, NJ By Gayle Steffy, 2024 MMP Field Naturalist Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. (O.e.) is a parasitic single celled organism known as a protozoan that infects monarch butterflies. It is transferred from an infected adult monarch to a caterpillar by spores that…...
Cape May Monarch Monitoring Project Annual Report 2024
By Anna Haggenjos and Gayle Steffy Project Overview The Monarch Monitoring Project (MMP) was founded in 1990 by naturalist Dick Walton and Dr. Lincoln Brower. This project, under New Jersey Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory, seeks to better understand the fall migration of monarch butterflies through Cape May Point and…...