It was quite an entertaining day today at the seawatch! Nice numbers of a variety of species were moving, most notably Northern Gannets, Brant, American Black Ducks, and Double-crested Cormorants. The Northern Gannets this morning were really cool: about one half hour after sunrise, all of a sudden there were gannets everywhere. After about an hour they started to slow down, and soon after that only a few were seen. Of the 384 gannets counted today, 346 were counted in the first two hours after sunrise. Migration! Woohoo!
Highlights today were 19 Snow Geese, 5 Wood Ducks, a Common Eider, a Red-breasted Merganser, 2 Great Cormorants, and 75 Great Blue Herons. A Merlin flew by carrying what appeared to be a recently captured Sanderling, and another Merlin whizzed by not more than 10 feet away along with seawall (I flinched, it was so close!). A huge swarm of Tree Swallows continues to work up and down the beach near the inlet. An American Redstart came in off the water and foraged in the pines, as did a Palm Warbler. An American Pipit called as it flew overhead.
A list of species detected follows, with counted migrants in bold:
4899 migrants today.
Location: Avalon Seawatch
Observation date: 10/5/10
Number of species: 48
Snow Goose 19
Brant 149
Canada Goose 10
Wood Duck 5
American Black Duck 183
Mallard 2
Northern Pintail 65
Green-winged Teal 72
Common Eider 1
Surf Scoter 75
Black Scoter 32
Surf/Black Scoter 21
Red-breasted Merganser 1
Red-throated Loon 4
Common Loon 22
Northern Gannet 384
Brown Pelican 31
Double-crested Cormorant 3677
Great Cormorant 2
Great Blue Heron 75
Great Egret X
Turkey Vulture 10
Osprey 12
Northern Harrier 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Merlin 5
Peregrine Falcon 7
Semipalmated Plover 20
American Oystercatcher 4
Ruddy Turnstone 6
Sanderling 40
Laughing Gull 23
Ring-billed Gull 15
Herring Gull 1
Great Black-backed Gull 12
Caspian Tern X
Forster's Tern 6
Royal Tern 12
Rock Pigeon X
Mourning Dove 2
Northern Flicker 2
Tree Swallow 2000
Carolina Wren 1
American Robin 1
European Starling X
American Pipit 1
Palm Warbler 1
American Redstart 1
House Sparrow X
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