An all-too-rapid switch back to easterly winds left partly cloudy skies over Cape May this morning. There was a light flight to be counted, but much of it was high and difficult to identify. 42 redstarts and 25 parulas headlined an 11 warbler species day on a tough day with a higher than normal proportion of warbler spuhs for the morning.
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| A hazy Blackburnian Warbler against clouds. Thank goodness for DSLRs. |
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| Quite a few warblers took their time in the walnuts at the lip of the dike before making the jump. |
Nonetheless, there were some good highlights to the morning like 23 Baltimore Orioles, including a few high flocks of five that tried their best to escape being counted. Blue Grosbeaks were clearly making a move today as well; I counted 5 southbound birds, all giving big buzzes as they flew overhead. That monster bill is still apparent even in morning flight!
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| It cleared up a bit later on, allowing for a nice look at this Magnolia Warbler. Check out that undertail pattern! |
8 northbound Red-breasted Nuthatches and a lone southbound Purple Finch made up the trailing edge of yesterday’s boreal push. We are at an interesting convergence of early and late season species here in the latter end of September. We had a single northbound Eastern Kingbird this morning-- it’s been awhile since I mentioned one, hasn’t it! In the vein of species that we hadn’t recorded in a while, we had a couple of Bank Swallows headed south.
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| This Red-breasted Nuthatch kindly "teed up" in the walnut before taking off. |
As always, you can find the link to the official count on Trektellen here and the complete eBird checklist here.
Bring on Day 52!
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