Barn Swallows stole the day by a mile today, moving in massive numbers on today’s light southwest winds. Shortly after the sun broke, Barn Swallows began zooming south past the dike, first in groups of threes and fives but then by the dozen. Any given scan across the the Delaware Bay revealed similar numbers doing their best storm-petrel impressions as they flew right over the water’s surface. The near-constant clicking of sports counters added to the ambiance of the morning, and I couldn’t even attempt photos of them because to do so would mean failing to count individuals to either side of me.
This is the only Barn Swallow photographed all day! |
Hardly anything else was migrating in numbers, however, which for whatever reason tends to be the case when we have big Barn Swallow flights in Cape May. We owe them a great debt for making the day entertaining and interesting!
We ended the morning at Higbee with 720 Barn Swallows (equalling our total from all the previous days of the count!) and 63 Purple Martins as the birds ceded the day to the grating purrs of cicadas. Although the flight at Higbee was done, the Barn Swallows had other plans. They continued streaming through the dunes at the Meadows, over the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, and in the sky above well past noon. I joined Tom Reed over there to continue basking in the spectacle, and his final count was 9,234 at 2:15! That makes for over 10,000 Barn Swallows past Cape May Point today! Oh, what a lovely August day with one of the world's most classic birds.
As always, you can find the link to the official count on Trektellen here and the complete eBird checklist here. TR’s totals from the Meadows in Trektellen are here.
Bring on Day 19!
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