This weekend Avalon experienced an awesome flight, consisting of the season's highest day so far, 46,000+ on Saturday, and nearly 32,000 birds today. While both days were primarily filled with scoters, the proportion of scoter species was quite different on each day. Saturday had about a 3 to 1 ration of Black to Surf. Today, however, was almost an even 50/50 Surf and Black. We also had quite a push of dabbling ducks, with over a thousand Green-winged Teal, hundreds of scaup, and a good mix of other species like black ducks, wigeon, and Wood Duck. The winter ducks have also begun returning, with handfuls of Bufflehead, Long-tailed Duck, Common Eider, Red-breasted Merganser, and even a Common Goldeneye. Today was the first significant increase in Red-throated Loons, with over 300 tallied, most as singles but with some nice loose flocks of 8-10 birds. Gannets have also picked up with 500 both days.
Saturday was pretty hectic, thanks to thousands of scoters with mixed dabbling ducks flying by at the same time as hundreds of cormorants sneaked by over Sea Isle City, hundreds of gannets headed south out at the horizon, and loons flew anywhere they felt like. I couldn't have done quite as good as a job without the help of all the visitors I had this weekend, assisting in pointing out sneaking cormorants or loons behind me, as well as keeping track of birds until I was done counting scoters so I could shift my attention quickly. Thanks!
Check out the data over at Trektellen:
Saturday: http://trektellen.org/count/view/1747/20171104
Sunday: http://trektellen.org/count/view/1747/20171105
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