I love September on Amelia Island. It is the start of migration for thousands of shorebirds, raptors, songbirds, hummingbirds and butterflies.
Most songbirds migrate south by night. Some stopover and feed during the day. This September I have seen hundreds of Swallows, a few dozen Eastern Kingbirds, several Brown Thrashers, Wilson’s and Yellow Throated Warblers. Today an immature Painted Bunting fed on beach grass seeds a few feet away. Most mornings I see a Ruby-throated Humming bird buzzing down the beach
Great Blue Herons migrate mostly by day and I see them singly or in groups of up to 20 towards their wintering grounds in Cuba, Central America, and the northern coasts of South America
Hundreds of Ibis, both this years young and adults head south in ragged V’s.
Butterflies race past me on the beach almost faster than I can count them. Gulf Fritillary’s Monarch’s, Red Admiral’s, the occasional Cloudless Sulphur and even a Zebra Longwing. This day I counted 385, south on route to Mexico and the Americas.
The raptor migration begins in September with Osprey leaving the coasts of the Northeast and Mid Atlantic to winter in Central and South America. Most dawns I can count half a dozen Osprey roosted overnight in dead pines near the beach, soon to join migrating ones following the shoreline as the sun rises. A few Merlin are seen in September. Mid September marks the beginning of the Bald Eagle migration.
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