Sea Watch, Thursday December 3, 2009

It is official, there are now only two Cape May bird counters left to finish out the season; our beloved part-time Hawk counter left us today. Take care, Melissa!

Today was a pleasant surprise considering the amount of rain that was forcasted to dump today, that is until last minute. It turned out to be a rather warm day when the sun was out, but it was a strong SW winds throughout the day.

The day started out with a few hundred birds each hour, but by the end of the fourth hour, migration dropped off and for the next 5.5 hours no hour had more than a hundred birds counted. So, today was a slow day.

Part of the time was passed counting Monarch butterflies, of which there were three.

The Sea Watch also had two immature Bald Eagles, and a Cooper's Hawk that flushed up a few hundred gulls from the inlet.

There were no birds of particular note, except perhaps a flock Pintail.

Here is a list of birds seen today.

Canada Goose 3
American Black Duck 5
Northern Pintail 9
Greater Scaup 1
Scaup sp. 6
Surf Scoter 140
White-winged Scoter 2
Black Scoter 127
Long-tailed Duck 5
Buffelhead 6
Hooded Merganser 3
Red-breasted Merganser 16
Red-throated Loon 420
Common Loon 18
Northern Gannet 761
Double-crested Cormorant 21
Great Cormorant 1
Laughing Gull 1
Ring-billed Gull 34
Herring Gull 23
Great Black-backed Gull 58

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