Morning Flight Sunday October 10, 2010

I will apologize in advance for what may be a rambling post with a lack of focus - today was the Big Sit, and a team of rogue birders kidnapped me and forced me to listen to nocturnal flight calls and owls from the hawkwatch platform starting at midnight before counting the songbird flight. Perhaps coincidentally, I'm a bit groggy at this point.
Today's flight at Higbee Beach was fairly typical for a songbird movement in mid-October, which is to say it was awesome. I counted right around 5000 birds dominated by American Robin (2300) and Yellow-rumped Warbler (2000), with lesser numbers of woodpeckers (Northern Flicker and Yellow-breasted Sapsucker being the two main movers of that group in morning flight), Red-breasted Nuthatches, both species of kinglets, and an overall low diversity of warblers typical of this date. Finches were also well-represented today, with several Pine Siskins and double-digit Purple Finches. Ramsay Koury from Pennsylvania helped count the songbirds both today and yesterday (thanks!), and I think he was pleased with a close flyover Connecticut Warbler, and then probably a bit perplexed at my relative enthusiasm about a close flyby White-breasted Nuthatch! The nuthatch is actually a much less common bird in morning flight at Higbee than Connecticut Warbler (though the warbler is thinning out here quickly as we get into mid-October), though October is one of the best times to detect the species on Cape Island - most records seem to be from Higbee or the Point.
In addition to great songbirds and visitors (I was able to bird with my mom and dad today in Cape May for the first time this fall!), the hawk show at Higbee was great. Pre-dawn, Ramsay and I noticed a high cloud of Sharp-shinned Hawks heading south towards Cape May Point, and started clicking them as they passed. Then, about half an hour later, we had an equivalent return flight heading north along the bayshore, much lower than before - about 110 birds were in each opposing pulse (perhaps the same ones?). Six Peregrine Falcons from the dike made a morning high count for me there; while you can clearly find them over Higbee on a daily basis, the south beach in Cape May is by far a better corridor for Peregrines on passage.