Morning Flight - 6 September 2012

Today's flight was night-and-day compared to yesterday's.  A great liftoff of birds last evening and a protracted east-west band of early morning rain produced staggering number of birds around Cape May Point this morning.  By the time heavy rains abated, birds were on the move.  Interestingly, the proximity of the point actually seemed to have more songbirds aloft (particularly Bobolinks) than at Higbee Beach.  However, despite a rain-shortened morning count, 1500+ warblers of 20 species were tallied.  The flight was overwhelmingly dominated by American Redstarts, followed by Northern Parulas and Northern Waterthrushes.  Black-and-white Warblers and Yellow Warblers also flew in moderate numbers.  All of these species - minus Northern Waterthrush - were regularly found on the ground around Cape May during the rest of the day with loads of redstarts predominating; surprisingly little diversity could be mustered from midday warbler searches on the ground.     

Yellow-billed Cuckoo - 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee - 1
Empidonax flycatcher - 3
Philadelphia Vireo - 1
Red-eyed Vireo - 15
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 2
American Robin - 1
Veery - 1
Cedar Waxwing - 23
Blue-winged Warbler - 1
"winged-warbler" sp. (Golden-winged/Blue-winged) - 1
Tennessee Warbler - 2
Northern Parula - 144
Yellow Warbler - 31
Chestnut-sided Warbler - 4
Magnolia Warbler - 5
Cape May Warbler - 7
Black-throated Blue Warbler - 18
Black-throated Green Warbler - 5
Blackburnian Warbler - 3
Palm Warbler - 1
Bay-breasted Warbler - 1
Blackpoll Warbler - 1
Black-and-white Warbler - 48
American Redstart - 726
Worm-eating Warbler - 1
Ovenbird - 1
Northern Waterthrush - 140
Louisiana Waterthrush - 1
Common Yellowthroat - 1
warbler sp. - 391
Scarlet Tanager - 3
Indigo Bunting - 3
Bobolink - 411
Baltimore Oriole - 1
Purple Finch - 1

Total =1999

Philadelphia Vireo (Photo by Sam Galick)

Tennessee Warbler (Photo by Sam Galick)

The other highlight for the morning was an atmospheric flock of 91 Common Nighthawks bound for Delaware.  As it turned out, this was merely a precursor for a red-letter day of Common Nighthawk migration.  (A one-hour count prior to sunset at the state park yielded an all-time Cape May high count of 1202 individuals!)