*Many 4-letter banding codes were used when referring to species, and here is a key for them: AMWO (American Woodcock), YRWA (Yellow-rumped Warbler), HETH (Hermit Thrush), NOFL (Northern Flicker), GOEA (Golden Eagle), ATFL (Ash-throated Flycatcher), CCSP (Clay-colored Sparrow), WEKI (Western Kingbird), and VESP (Vesper Sparrow).
It all started out rather innocently, with what appeared to be a very good nocturnal migration (although we didn't yet grasp just how big it was):
9:44 PM: Excellent night listening/watching @ the Convention Center. 30 birds a minute SEEN.
As an aside, the Cape May Convention Center is on Beach Avenue in Cape May City (here's a map: Cape May Convention Center , It's actually where THE Bird Show used to be held until the building was condemned), and it's an excellent place to experience nocturnal bird migration. Whereas in most places that are good for night listening you can only hope to hear birds, sometimes a night vigil at the Convention Center will be rewarded with views of some birds in the lights of Beach Avenue. However, on Thursday night there was clearly something out of the ordinary going on:
10:03 PM: make that 60/min seen
10:47 PM: Pace of flight over convention center increasing significantly.
It's always interesting to compare the nocturnal flights between different locations in the area. For instance, while we were seeing an increase in flight intensity, people to the north of us were noticing the opposite:
11:02 PM: in o.c. {Ocean City}-just slowed down a lot from 60+/min an hour ago
That was certainly not the case @ the Convention Center at the time:
11:09 PM: just clicked 300/min visual at convention center / mob {Michael O'Brien} say best flight since 1999
And finally, Richard Crossley put it in pretty blunt terms a short while later:
11:17 PM: simply amazing. Get out of bed. Once in a lifetime. Convention centre.
As the flurry of messages about the birds flying overhead subsided, we were starting to notice more and more birds, presumably disoriented from the lights of Beach Avenue, coming in and landing in some very strange places: the street, power lines, park benches, window sills, storefront chairs and tables, the beach, mini golf courses, and building eaves (I'm surely leaving out a couple). The single most unique perching effort of the night, however, went to the Eastern Phoebe who landed briefly on the highest spot in the immediate vicinity: Seawatch counter Steve Kolbe's head.
After the crowd (of birders) dissipated, a couple of us stayed behind to walk Beach Avenue to see what we could turn up. In the end we tallied no less than 15 species of Sparrows, with 13 of those seen on the ground. The Ammodramus turnout was especially notable, with Grasshopper, Nelson's, Saltmarsh, and Seaside Sparrow all seen on the pavement at one time or another. Hermit Thrushes, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and American Robins were in abundance, and we even tallied a low flying and very vocal Red-breasted Nuthatch. I was able to take digiscoped bird photos with a point-and-shoot camera that was ill-suited for the setting. If you'd like to see some good photos of the birds from that evening I encourage you to check out Tom's much more timely post on this page from October 31 (http://cmboviewfromthefield.blogspot.com/2010/10/weekend-update-part-i.html).In the meantime, here are a couple of my offerings:
How do you become famous if you're "just another Yellowthroat," passing through Cape May in the fall? The answer below:
You drop onto a window sill on Beach Ave. at midnight in front of Michael O'Brien, Tom Johnson, and Richard Crossley. This was one of the better photos I managed of any of the birds we saw that night, which is a good example of why Digi-scoping isn't an ideal method for photographing things at night.
The above photo shows how Tom got those up close and personal photos of the bird below (you can see it in the above photo as well; it's just to the left of, and almost under, Michael):
So that was nocturnal flight #1 (and certainly the more impressive of the two), and since even birders have to rest sometimes, there were a couple of precious hours of sleep grabbed by all before the mayhem resumed over an hour and a half before sunrise:
5:48 AM: dozens of birds on street and low flying beach ave and cape may mall – call in sick!
6:27 AM: Birds allover villas. Sparrows an heth sitting on rd
6:29 AM: It’s like Xmas morning!
6:30 AM: lots yrwa overhead, Lots heth,sparrows,nofl etc. Roads and doorways jammed
However, along the Cape May Canal Mike Crewe noted a decided lack of excitement:
6:33 AM: Just for balance: not a single bird seen or heard here yet
Although that didn't last very long, as he chimed in with this shortly thereafter:
6:41 AM: Amwo streaming over now
And so it continued:
6:47 AM: amwo streaming by hidden valley lot too over 100 seen in 5 minuutes
6:56 AM: Dunes DRIPPING with sparrows, yrwa juncos, robins.
7:07 AM: trying to drive to point through clouds of sparrows that are increasing by the minute. Wild.
And the sun still had not even risen yet! At this point I had already been at the Dike at Higbee's Beach WMA for a while before the Morning Flight count was to begin (15 minutes before sunrise). I spent much of that time literally driving my car around in a tight circle at the base of the Dike with my brights on looking at whatever birds happened to be in my lights (dozens at a time). The spectacle of Sparrows and Hermit Thrushes flowing around the vegetation and the road there was simply incredible. There were easily hundreds, and probably thousands, of birds in the tiny area between the woods and the Morning Flight platform.
Morning Flight Summary (as promised from two weeks ago):
As I climbed up the Dike fifteen minutes before dawn to start the count, Sparrows were already flowing north, and the first two hours up there could best be described as sheer mayhem. Sparrows usually participate in Morning Flight in very small numbers, but for the first couple of hours after sunrise on that Friday hundreds upon hundreds of Chipping Sparrows, and thousands of Dark-eyed Juncos flew north. There were a few minutes of bewilderment when the Sparrows were all flying out and there were also good numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers and American Robins flying, and then the flight really started...
http://vimeo.com/16516208
(Steve Bauer shot 6 minutes of video of the flight through his point-and-shoot camera)
The flight was from horizon to horizon. It was a layer cake of birds in the sky, with Sparrows (mostly Juncos, but many Chippings and smaller numbers of others sprinkled in) low, Yellow-rumped Warblers and Finches above them, American Robins still higher, and then the balls of Blackbirds at all heights. Thankfully the strong wind that brought them to Cape May overnight did not abate, and this kept the entire flight lower than it could have been, and kept the upper level of American Robins out of the stratosphere. Rusty Blackbirds and Pine Siskins put on incredible showings, with pure flocks of each numbering 40+ individuals coming through at times, many at or below eye level.
Interestingly, the thing I may have shown the most outward excitement about were 9 individual birds heading north, each by themselves. The species in question was one of the most numerous on Cape Island over the weekend, but their Genus accounts for something like well less than 0.1% of birds counted engaging in re-determined morning flight behavior. They were Hermit Thrushes. It's exceedingly unusual to see any Catharus Thrush participate in Morning Flight, so seeing nine of them fly out was very unexpected.
At the end of five hours up on the Dike I had counted 145,484 individuals.
Meanwhile the messages just kept rolling in, and sadly, Michael O'Brien found what was the rarest bird of the flight up to that point:
7:53 AM: dead LeConte's Sparrow in my pocket; picked up on Cape May Point.
And a couple more for good measure:
8:37 AM: I feel like I’m taking crazy pills {this was a private text from someone not on keekeekerr}
8:54 AM: Bayshore lousy w birds. Yumps, sparrows, nofl, etc. Total spectacle
And of course, there were rarities too:
9:35 AM: Grasshopper Sparrow : 320 Alexander Ave
9:47 AM: just got a very interesting desc of gcsp {Golden-crowned Sparrow} higbee nr lot
2:47 PM: Common ground dove in cmsp beyond boardwalk per blake Mathys. Will get more details.
3:52 PM: banders are bringing GOEA to HW:
While we're having a great season for Golden Eagles right now, it's likely that this will be the only perched one we'll have gotten to see from the Hawkwatch when all is said and done. This one came to rest briefly after being banded and released.Now, just one night and day of this kind of madness would be enough for the record books but, this being Cape May, the insanity wouldn't stop there. As night fell (and many of us were at the banquet), the texts continued rolling:
6:23 PM: incredible number of bats feeding along Seagrove.
9:11 PM: Check out the radar!
9:20 PM: Steady flight over the beach again.
9:21 PM: moorhen on ground by grand hotel, many sparrows too
10:22 PM: Oodles of birds visible over the Convention Center again.
There was some night listening/watching, and a Long-eared Owl was seen flying over the Convention Center. At this point a few winks of sleep were then acquired by most, but once again before sunrise:
6:52 AM: Roadside bird mayhem continues on bayshore, south of New England Road
7:03 AM: 100+ hermit thrush on the ground, higbee dike track
7:46 AM: weki n over higbee lot
8:26 AM: Ccsp in large sparrow flock on wilson ave
8:57 AM: Henslows sparrow tower field hedge
10:36 AM atfl higbee s of tower {This found by Kathy and Roger Horn less than 100 yards away from where some of us were waiting out the re-appearance of the Henslow's Sparrow}
11:08 AM 2 juv goea higbee
11:27 AM beanery loaded with vesp
The flow of relevant texts petered out at that point, although Tony Leukering had one more very interesting observation (from the Cape May-Lewes ferry while leading CMBO's Poor Man's Pelagic Trip) about a diurnal migration event:
11:51 AM 51 TV about 1/3 way across Bay heading S!
This was pretty interesting as those 51 actually ended up turning around despite being almost halfway across Delaware Bay, and a separate group of 61 was just arriving in Delaware as Tony's ferry pulled in.
**As for the numbers of individual birds on the ground on Saturday (October 30), I believe you can look forward to an upcoming post concerning that in the next couple of days on the sightings blog: ( http://www.birdcapemay.org/blog ) Anyway, here are a couple of fun photos from that Saturday to round things out:
As if taking a kid birding in your Hybrid vehicle wasn't environmentally friendly enough, here one of the thousands (likely tens of thousands) of Hermit Thrushes on Cape Island on Saturday decided it wanted to come along as well. What better use for a windshield wiper when it's dry out?
The irruption of Cattle Egrets into the northeast over the last three-or-so weeks has hit Cape May hard enough so that what would normally be a very noteworthy November sighting on the Island is almost ignored at this point. Here 7 hang out near Bayshore Road on the Saturday of the Autumn Weekend.
This Ash-throated Flycatcher found by Kathy and Roger Horn at Higbee's happened to be less than a hundred yards from just about the most obliging Henslow's Sparrow in history:
One more photo of the famous Henslow's Sparrow because...well, why not?
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