View from the Field: Morning Flight - Friday, September 8, 2017

Can you say YOWZA?!?

15,000 birds counted today.

12,244 American Redstarts.

This morning was absolutely bonkers at the Higbee dike and platform. Clearly, weather conditions were perfect for migrating songbirds overnight, and come sunrise, they streamed out of the trees in a massive wave that lasted for almost a solid hour. It was one of the most amazing bird spectacles I have ever seen...although, I must say, I didn't get to watch THAT much of it since I was trying my best to get everything entered into Trektellen. In fact, I eventually abandoned all hope of entering American Redstarts in real time (because there were just way too many!) which is why the data presented below is vastly different than the live stream count from earlier today. With a flight this massive (360-600 birds/min!!!), it's best to get a sense of how many individual birds are flying by and then pick through/break down who ISN'T a Redstart. But enough about crunching the numbers, let's look at some awesome Neotropical migrants below!!

Also, it looks like tomorrow could be another spectacular morning for songbirds so I would get out and go birding if you can!

And, of course, I have to thank all the awesome people who helped picked through those 12000 Redstarts to find other species. You guys rock, and I don't know what I would have done without you. Special thanks to Tom Johnson and Glen Davis for helping me crunch numbers afterwards (and special thanks to Tom for some photos...because I certainly didn't have time to take many).