Morning Flight - 15 October 2012

Northbound songbirds were few-and-far-between this morning, with a daily total reminiscent of those dog-days of summer/early fall.  Of the mere three species catalogued, the highlight was easily the first Horned Larks for me at Morning Flight (after yesterday's first of the fall for me on Cape Island).  Horned Larks are a rare flyover at Morning Flight, with an average of only four birds/year.  In fact, this species isn't even annual, with misses for all of the 2007, 2008, and 2011 seasons.

Horned Lark - 2
American Robin - 22

Yellow-rumped Warbler - 43

warbler sp. - 5

Total = 72

With so few birds to quantify, I was able to do a bit more cogitating: 

The number of Yellow-rumped Warblers has fluctuated widely over the past nine years at Morning Flight (2003 - 2011).  Season counts vary from as many as 267,000 to as few as 36,000; although the mean is 109,000 birds/year, the median is much lower (65,000).  Thus, it seems that Yellow-rumped Warblers - by far the most numerous warbler migrant at Cape May - exhibit a quasi-bimodal distribution, with either >150,000 individuals or 35-40,000 birds/year.  It remains to be seen which category, if either, 2012 will be.     

Additionally, there turned out to be a nice flight of waterbirds, including my largest southbound scoter flight of the fall:

Common Loon - 3
Black Scoter - 153
Surf Scoter - 24
Common Tern - 7
Parasitic Jaeger - 2 (both light-morph adults)