25 October 2011 - Morning Flight

Despite the northwest wind and clear skies last night, there was no large influx of songbird migrants to Cape May. Radar was relatively quiet last night, and there was a corresponding lack of morning flight at Higbee Beach. 200 Yellow-rumped Warblers and about 100 American Robins made up the bulk of today's flight. Noteworthy was a small southbound stream of Ring-billed Gulls, one of the first obvious gull movements I've actually seen from the dike this fall. A full list of species is found below - species counted as part of the morning flight project are found in bold.

Eastern Meadowlarks continue to be a welcome daily sight at the Higbee Dike.

Yellow-rumped Warblers make up the great bulk of warbler migrants in Cape May at this late date, but...

... there is still definitely some diversity around - in addition to still-abundant warblers like Blackpoll and Palm, Black-throated Green Warblers are still trickling through, though at a rate of perhaps 1 per day at the Higbee Beach dike.

Brant (Atlantic) 1
Canada Goose 15
Surf Scoter 7
Black Scoter 1
Common Loon 1
Double-crested Cormorant 120
Bald Eagle 4
Sharp-shinned Hawk 35
Cooper's Hawk 7
Merlin 1
White-rumped Sandpiper 2
Laughing Gull 40
Ring-billed Gull 25 influx heading south
Herring Gull 2
Great Black-backed Gull 15
Common Tern 1
Forster's Tern 10
Royal Tern 1
Rock Pigeon 35
Mourning Dove 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 3
Eastern Phoebe 1
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 4
Carolina Chickadee 3
Tufted Titmouse 1
Brown Creeper 1
Carolina Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 4
American Robin 110
European Starling 75
Cedar Waxwing 12
Blackpoll Warbler 13
Yellow-rumped Warbler 220
warbler sp. 4
Eastern Towhee 1
Savannah Sparrow 2
Song Sparrow 4
Swamp Sparrow 3
White-throated Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 4
Northern Cardinal 2
Red-winged Blackbird 40
Rusty Blackbird 1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)