Morning Flight, 5 October 2015

Lots of birds have been flying through Cape May during the last 24 hours.  Nocturnal flight calls have abounded and today's flight was pretty impressive for about 30 minutes.  The sun slightly cracked through the clouds along the eastern perimeter of the Higbee impoundment, and approaching from the south, numbers of Palm Warbler zipped and cantered into the stiff 15 mph NNE winds just meters above the treetops.  Today's shift in diversity should be continued and added upon in the coming days.  So get out there and experience this coming cold front.

Interestingly, Don Freiday watched a similar flight with similar numbers and species composition, and at close range at Norbury's Landing, 10 km up the bayshore.   That's an awesome comparison of morning flight activity in a wider range.

Species	October 5th 2015
Belted Kingfisher	1
Red-bellied Woodpecker	3
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	9
Downy Woodpecker	1
Northern Flicker	84
Eastern Phoebe	1
Red-eyed Vireo	8
Blue Jay	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	3
European Starling	20
Cedar Waxwing	9
Northern Waterthrush	4
Black-and-white Warbler	69
Tennessee Warbler	7
Common Yellowthroat	5
American Redstart	82
Cape May Warbler	8
Northern Parula	96
Magnolia Warbler	8
Blackpoll Warbler	54
Black-throated Blue Warbler	25
Palm Warbler	748
Pine Warbler	2
Yellow-rumped Warbler	44
Black-throated Green Warbler	9
warbler sp.	448
Savannah Sparrow	13
Scarlet Tanager	8
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	4
Blue Grosbeak	2
Indigo Bunting	53
Dickcissel	1
Bobolink	32
Baltimore Oriole	1
American Goldfinch	3
Total warblers	1,609
Total	1,866