Morning Flight Thursday October 21, 2010

The highlight of a low diversity passerine flight this morning was actually a raptor - a juvenile Northern Goshawk popped up along the far side of the dike and dogged a Cooper's Hawk for a bit before disappearing into Higbee Beach. The passerine flight consisted primarily of Yellow-rumped Warblers and American Robins (see below), but overall it was quite light and faded quickly in the strong west southwest wind.
As the cast of characters changed through the fall at Higbee Beach, I think it likely that the birds compiled strategies for the most effective ways to confuse the songbird counter, passing the cumulative knowledge on to the later transients as the season progressed. First, the staging Eastern Kingbirds in late August conspired to stage false starts heading north out of Higbee, only to become distracted and fight with each other, sputtering back into the trees to the south. Then, the baton was passed to Northern Flickers, which for several days in September and early October pretended to engage in morning flight only to return to the Accipiter buffer that the woods provide, before flying out again just minutes later. Now, American Robins appear to have joined in on the fun. As far as I can tell, there is a significant roost of robins right now somewhere east of the Higbee Dike and west of the Seashore bridge over the Cape May Canal; each morning just after sunrise, a vertical column of robins boils up over the eastern horizon before morphing into a giant congo train that establishes a holding pattern over Cape Island for an hour or so before dispersing. At least, I think that is what the robins are doing. Of course, they've probably already passed word on to the blackbirds and finches about the fun of seeing the befuddled counter spinning around and swearing under his breath...

Peregrine Falcon. Higbee Beach (Tom Johnson).