The early count period is dead! Long live the early count period! Highlights (counting all directions) include 958 Purple Martins, 720 Barn Swallows, 413 Yellow Warblers, 225 American Redstarts, 112 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, 99 American Goldfinches, 58 Orchard Orioles, and 6 Yellow-billed Cuckoos. Wow! We totaled fifteen warbler species and a little over over 14,000 individual birds (and that’s not counting the July 29th flight). Considering the near total lack of cold fronts during the official count period, I will proudly take those totals.
With the winds still coming out of the west and no precipitation to block incoming migrants, active movement was notably more evident today. The birds seemed to recognize the traditional start date of the official count as well: Barn Swallows were back at it, and we had our first solid morning for Bobolinks, with approximately 500 northbound individuals calling “bink!” across the sky. Kingbirds and waxwings were in decent attendance as well with 52 and 89 southbound individuals, but big flights for both of those species are impending.
We also scored our first Chestnut-sided Warbler of the fall! Still lots of diversity to add though-- Canada Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Cape May Warbler, and Northern Parula are all low-hanging fruit that should appear very soon, and we eagerly await their arrival.
 |
| Just keep zipping, just keep zipping. Photo © Tom Johnson. |
Two true blue cold fronts are forecasted to come through Cape May on Sat-Sun and Wed-Thurs, so keep those prayers to the Birding Gods flowing!
As always, you can find the link to the official count on Trektellen here and the complete eBird checklist here. Photos from this morning can be found below.
Bring on Day 17!
 |
| Northern Rough-winged Swallows like (love?) to buzz the biofilm pool on the dike. Photo © Andrew Dreelin. |
 |
| I'm gonna miss you guys...*sniffle* Photo © Andrew Dreelin. |
 |
| "Coming in for a landing...deploying stilts now." Photo © Andrew Dreelin. |
No comments:
Post a Comment