30 August 2011 - Morning Flight

After a light to moderate flight yesterday, the floodgates opened for songbird migrants last night - warblers poured forth from Higbee Beach this morning, with around 1500 warblers of 20 species noted, including an excellent count of 912 American Redstarts. Other interesting things today included big counts of Chimney Swift and Black-and-white Warbler, a Cerulean Warbler, and an early Connecticut Warbler (photographed). A small number (but at least 10) of warblers had messy tails and wings today; this could be a result of wind/ water damage during the passage of the hurricane. I usually don't notice any misplaced feathers on warblers at the dike, so seeing a few during the course of one morning aroused my suspicions about potential storm effects. The sky is forecast to be clear tonight with but a light northerly wind, so I anticipate another nice flight tomorrow morning (likely fewer birds than today though). A full species eBird list from today can be found below.

Today was the second day this August with a substantial number of Ovenbirds seen "flying out" at Higbee Beach. I think that this very common warbler is undersampled by morning flight counts, presumably because the species has a lower tendency to reorient after daybreak than other species.

Chimney Swifts were certainly on the move this morning in Cape May. Mixed in with a steady stream of Purple Martins and Barn Swallows, 65 Chimney Swifts were tallied moving north along the bayshore, a nice August count here. Despite looking carefully, we didn't see the unidentified large swift that was found on Sunday at Sunset Beach.

Unlike their robin cousins in the genus Turdus, thrushes of the genus Catharus are generally rather reticent to undertake extended flights across open spaces during the daylight. While they are often highly conspicuous during nocturnal migration due to their loud flight calls, it is pretty rare to see one "flying out" at Higbee Beach. This morning, several Veeries made large circles around the crowd on the dike, including this individual, which flew to at least 75 feet above the ground before it returned to its senses and zoomed back into the undergrowth along the dunes.


Cape Island--Higbees Beach SWA--Dike, Cape May, US-NJ
Aug 30, 2011 6:11 AM - 10:26 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Comments: light NNE wind last night, clear
94 species (+3 other taxa)

Canada Goose 15
Mallard 4
Double-crested Cormorant 45
Great Egret 1
Green Heron 1
Osprey 2
Bald Eagle 3
Northern Harrier 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Broad-winged Hawk 4
Black-bellied Plover 1
Killdeer 1
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 5
Ruddy Turnstone 10
Sanderling 20
Semipalmated Sandpiper 30
Least Sandpiper 15
White-rumped Sandpiper 2
Laughing Gull 80
Ring-billed Gull 1
Herring Gull 8
Great Black-backed Gull 15
Least Tern 2
Black Tern 2
Common Tern 6
Forster's Tern 13
Royal Tern 5
Rock Pigeon 9
Mourning Dove 6
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Chimney Swift 65 *high - moving north along bayshore in small bursts of 3-5
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 10
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 2
Least Flycatcher 1
Empidonax sp. 9
Great Crested Flycatcher 2
Eastern Kingbird 908 *high
White-eyed Vireo 2
Warbling Vireo 2
Red-eyed Vireo 27
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 1
crow sp. 2
Purple Martin 250
Tree Swallow 55
Bank Swallow 5
Barn Swallow 110
Cliff Swallow 1
Carolina Chickadee 2
Carolina Wren 3
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 67
Veery 7 includes 5 that attempted morning flight!
Gray Catbird 2
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 140
Cedar Waxwing 332
Ovenbird 8
Worm-eating Warbler 2
Northern Waterthrush 64
Black-and-white Warbler 69
Prothonotary Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 6
Nashville Warbler 1
Connecticut Warbler 1 *early
Common Yellowthroat 1
American Redstart 912
Cape May Warbler 5
Cerulean Warbler 1
Northern Parula 19
Magnolia Warbler 3
Blackburnian Warbler 9
Yellow Warbler 165
Chestnut-sided Warbler 8
Blackpoll Warbler 2
Black-throated Blue Warbler 14
Prairie Warbler 5
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Canada Warbler 1
warbler sp. 255
Clay-colored Sparrow 1 pale Spizella flying past dike with thin, short flight call
Scarlet Tanager 3
Northern Cardinal 2
Blue Grosbeak 5
Indigo Bunting 11 Dickcissel 1
Bobolink 232
Red-winged Blackbird 600
Common Grackle 16
Brown-headed Cowbird 24
Baltimore Oriole 48
House Finch 25
American Goldfinch 8
House Sparrow 20

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