Morning Flight Saturday September 11, 2010

Woohoo! 1000+ warblers at the Higbee Dike sure ain't bad. Today marked a notable switch from warbler flights handily dominated by American Redstarts to strong showings by a few other species, notably Palm Warbler and Northern Parula. Western Palm Warblers are showing well at Cape May right now; the yellower Eastern Palms will likely start to show in a few weeks. A brilliant non-songbird highlight came after most of the regular Dikers left for the day; around 9:30 AM, Sam Galick and I heard a couple of rumbly trumpets from an unseen Sandhill Crane, presumably a stratospheric migrant that we failed to pick out of the searingly blue skies.

Black-and-white Warbler. Higbees Beach (Tom Johnson).

Location: Cape Island--Higbees Beach SWA--Dike
Observation date: 9/11/10
Notes: NNW 5 mph; mostly clear; strong flightline early to the east (mostly warbler sp.); early redstart push yielded to heavy Palm flight later in the morning
Number of species: 39

Ruby-throated Hummingbird 9
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 2
Eastern Wood-Pewee 8
Empidonax sp. 3
Eastern Kingbird 3
Philadelphia Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 29
Red-breasted Nuthatch 9
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 22
American Robin 7
Cedar Waxwing 165
Tennessee Warbler 5
Nashville Warbler 3
Northern Parula 107
Yellow Warbler 15
Chestnut-sided Warbler 3
Magnolia Warbler 4
Cape May Warbler 7
Black-throated Blue Warbler 33
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 2
Black-throated Green Warbler 5
Blackburnian Warbler 5
Prairie Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 409
Bay-breasted Warbler 5
Blackpoll Warbler 20
Bay-breasted/Blackpoll Warbler 9
Black-and-white Warbler 23
American Redstart 248
Ovenbird 2
Northern Waterthrush 78
Connecticut Warbler 1
Wilson's Warbler 1
warbler sp. 269
Savannah Sparrow 5
Scarlet Tanager 9
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 13
Blue Grosbeak 2
Indigo Bunting 3
Bobolink 170
Purple Finch 1

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