16 August 2011 - Morning Flight

The first day of the Morning Flight count at Higbee Beach dawned to a light west wind and very pleasant temperatures, a nice departure from recent days of sweltering heat and humidity. I enjoyed good company and a modest flight of warblers (over 300 individual warblers).
There is potential for a good songbird flight tomorrow morning- winds are forecast to be less than 10 mph out of the north tonight with clear skies. Actually, the skies aren't completely clear, as there are good numbers of warblers calling overhead right now as I write this at 9:30 PM in a well-lit part of Rio Grande (just north of Cape Island), with some birds visible in the streetlights.

Cape Island--Higbees Beach SWA--Dike, Cape May, US-NJ
Aug 16, 2011 5:58 AM - 9:13 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Comments: morning flight count at the dike - w/ Cameron Rutt, Doug Gochfeld, and Brian
68 species (+8 other taxa)

Mallard 2
Double-crested Cormorant 3
Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 2
Snowy Egret 1
Bald Eagle 1
Sharp-shinned/Cooper's Hawk 2
Peregrine Falcon 2
Black-bellied Plover 15
Semipalmated Plover 20
Killdeer 1
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 8
Ruddy Turnstone 6
Sanderling 3
Semipalmated Sandpiper 40
Least Sandpiper 5
peep sp. 160
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher 1
Laughing Gull 55
Herring Gull 4
Great Black-backed Gull 2
Least Tern 1
Common Tern 2
Forster's Tern 90
Royal Tern 6
Black Skimmer 2
Rock Pigeon 12
Mourning Dove 4
Yellow-billed/Black-billed Cuckoo 1 CR only
Chimney Swift 3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 9
Downy Woodpecker 1
Least Flycatcher 1
Empidonax sp. 1
Eastern Kingbird 215
White-eyed Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 3
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 2
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 1
Purple Martin 18
Tree Swallow 15
Barn Swallow 75
Carolina Chickadee 2
Carolina Wren 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Gray Catbird 4
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 165
Cedar Waxwing 40
Northern Waterthrush 65
Louisiana/Northern Waterthrush 1
Black-and-white Warbler 6
Common Yellowthroat 1
American Redstart 85
Northern Parula 2
Magnolia Warbler 2
Yellow Warbler 115
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2
Prairie Warbler 8
Canada Warbler 1
warbler sp. 82
Song Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 2
Blue Grosbeak 9
Indigo Bunting 3
Bobolink 4
Red-winged Blackbird 110
Common Grackle 14
Brown-headed Cowbird 4
Baltimore Oriole 1
blackbird sp. 50
House Finch 10
American Goldfinch 3
House Sparrow 4

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://ebird.org)


Long-billed Dowitcher - molting adult heading off from Cape May Point State Park to Delaware and points beyond


Bald Eagle - adult cruising past the Higbee Dike this morning