Avalon Seawatch - September 24, 2011

Today featured weather that was comparable to yesterday, with mild and overcast conditions prevailing, but with not nearly enough breeze to keep away the billions of no-see-ums at dawn! And unlike yesterday there was a noticeable, albeit small, pulse of birds during the mid-morning, highlighted by 32 Brown Pelicans. Double-crested Cormorants put in their first showing of the season, with small groups sliding past all day. Our first wading bird of the season was a Great Blue Heron that appeared out of the early morning fog, and our first flock of dabbling ducks came by way of 33 Northern Pintails that passed during the 4:00 hour.

[Six of the 32 Brown Pelicans that passed by the
Seawatch today. Photo by Sam Galick; click to enlarge.]

Other notable sightings included a flock of 5 Whimbrel, a single Red Knot and an extremely dark Peregrine Falcon that buzzed the seawall during the afternoon. The day's list follows- count species are bold-faced, and totals for those species reflect only the number of individuals migrating today.

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Avalon Seawatch, Cape May, US-NJ
Sep 24, 2011
39 species (+2 other taxa)

Northern Pintail 33 (one flock during 4pm hour)
Northern Gannet 8 (6 adults, 1 juvenile, 1 3rd-year)
Double-crested Cormorant 128
Brown Pelican 32 (all between 9:00 and 10:30am; a slight majority adults)
Great Blue Heron 1 (high over ocean, shortly after dawn)
Osprey 12
Peregrine Falcon 2
Black-bellied Plover 8
Semipalmated Plover 1
American Oystercatcher 1
Spotted Sandpiper 1 (juvenile)
Greater Yellowlegs 2
Whimbrel 5 (one flock high overhead at 4:19pm, headed ESE)
Ruddy Turnstone 6
Red Knot 1 (flying out of inlet)
Sanderling 24
Semipalmated Sandpiper 9
Least Sandpiper 1
peep sp. 7
Laughing Gull 30
Ring-billed Gull 1
Herring Gull 8
Great Black-backed Gull 6
Caspian Tern 3
Common Tern 32
Forster's Tern 2
Royal Tern 11
Black Skimmer 7 (one flock southbound at 6:29pm)
Parasitic Jaeger 1 (dark-morph juvenile during 3pm hour; passed close over bar)
Rock Pigeon 9
Mourning Dove 2
crow sp. 7
Tree Swallow 90
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 1
European Starling 2
Blackpoll Warbler 1 (flew in off water at 8:19am)
Song Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 1
Bobolink 3 (flew in off water at 7:48am)
House Sparrow 18

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