Morning Flight - Monday, August 20, 2018

The “bubble” flight call of an Upland Sandpiper kicked off an otherwise quiet sunrise at the dike today. The dike remained largely quiet until around 8:00 AM, when a significant Purple Martin, a.k.a “Mini-Merlin” movement got underway in what looked like a unified “liftoff” from somewhere to the southeast of the dike (my aerial insectivore senses lead me to guess Pond Creek Marsh as the most likely source).

This northbound flight of 1,500+ is the second largest tally of Purple Martins recorded for the official Morning Flight Songbird Count, although it’s worth noting that Purple Martins have only been counted for the past several years as the count has grown beyond its original focus on warblers and the like. Most of our aerial insectivores are long-distance Neotropical migrants too, y’know! As with many movements here, some obvious questions arise: were these martins the accumulated southbound birds that had flown by the count in prior days, or were these recent departures, perhaps a small segment the famously massive roost of ~750,000 on the Maurice River north of here? That sort of question requires individually tagged birds for a real answer, but the martins were certainly headed north in force in a broad front across the middle of Cape Island. The counter in me must confess that I’m a little glad it was “only” 1,500. I love Purple Martins to the ends of the Earth, but I think my heart would stop if I had to count that many while worrying about everything else going past the dike!

The other notable of the day was the sizeable roaming flock of kingbirds that would occasionally mix with (and chase!) the migrating martins, which provided an interesting ID challenge at a backlit distance. These big wandering flocks often move across Cape May well into the day, and they are truly a spectacular sign of late August! If only they were a little more decisive about whether to go north or south...

Right now kingbirds seem a little "directionally challenged."
You are royalty! Make up your minds!  

As always, you can find the link to the official count on Trektellen here and the complete eBird checklist here.

Bring on Day 21!