Morning Flight - Monday, October 22, 2018

A diverse horde of birds took advantage of the light NW winds on the second day of the cold front this morning! Sparrows were flushing from the road as I pulled up to the dike, and both species of kinglets (infamous for their pre-sunrise movements) were already flying in big numbers as I was getting set up. The temptation to count them was strong, but I had to wait until 7:01 to begin! I estimate around 60 escaped the count while I was there, but only the birds truly know how many moved pre-sunrise.

I spent the first 15 minutes of the count peering over the lip of the dike and surveying the sea of Phragmites to count Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets darting low, which were moving in similar proportions until Ruby-crowneds pulled ahead big time. Several Brown Creepers also shot low across the leeward side as well. This elfin forest sprite is one of my favorite birds to see in morning flight-- I just wish they would get up higher so I could get a flight shot!

Little did we realize how many phoebes would be flying today. 

Here's a Ruby-crowned Kinglet that got above the phrag.
Check out that eye ring and the yellowish flanks! 

As the sun continued to creep into the cloudless sky, long strands of American Robins began picking up over the dike, with Yellow-rumped Warblers dotting around them like flak. I stared at the spectacle, utterly in awe of the sheer number of birds moving. The contrast between the meatball-sized kinglets jumping through cover and the river of robins was quite the incredible and amusing contrast.

Thankfully we had predicted that today would be a big flight day, and help from the wonderfully supportive Cape May community was on the way. Glen Davis (former counter and my MF mentor) arrived and began making rate-of-passage estimates for the American Robins and Yellow-rumps, while still somehow finding time to pick new species out of the chaos, such as our first official Orange-crowned Warbler for the count. David Weber (our seawatch counter, on his day off) and Maria Smith (former interpretive naturalist) jumped into action counting kinglets and nuthatches. Adehl Schwaderer (also on her day off) once again clicked flickers while trading off data entry with me. Pulses of finches, waxwings, woodpeckers, and general songbird diversity kept me plenty occupied. It quickly became clear that Eastern Phoebes were moving in a big way this morning, as one after another continued to be called out to me. I quickly tossed an extra clicker to Maria Smith who began counting them fastidiously.

I just can't help myself--I love sapsuckers!

Yellow-rumps kept pouring. American Robins kept streaming. Northern Flickers kept bounding. Kinglets kept zipping. And phoebes kept chugging their way past us in ever more surprising numbers! The previous single-day record for Eastern Phoebe past the official count was 51. It’s now 265!!! Holy Janice! Big kudos to Maria for counting half if not more of that total.

This robin came after the main pulse, hence the better light.

That's a new angle on a phoebe for me. 

As temperatures and cloud cover increasing with time, the massive pulse of birds tailed off around 8:30 AM (at which point I could handle counting most things by myself), but there were still busy numbers of Yellow-rumps, phoebes, kinglets, nuthatches, and woodpeckers passing through until 11:30. A late-in-the-day Lark Sparrow, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and Black-billed Cuckoo were great bonus birds.

We finished the day with just over 11,000 American Robins and Yellow-rumps, and 407 flickers (we’re over 4,000 and have the 3rd highest count for them in the dataset, if I hadn’t mentioned that already), 23 Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and 14 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. 

An adult male Red-bellied Woodpecker bounds by. 

391 Ruby-crowned Kinglets (top 3 single day flight!), 114 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 189 Purple Finches, 105 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 10 White-breasted Nuthatches, 14 Brown Creepers (top 2 single day flight!) were also great totals for a very busy but very fun morning.

Nuthatch comparison!
Size is hard to judge in flight but note the more elongated profile of the WBNU. 

A final, hearty thank you to everyone who came up on the dike and helped or just enjoyed the spectacle! Counting is much easier when you have a birding community like Cape May supporting you! The winds will be out of the SW tomorrow morning, but another cold front will be coming through Tuesday evening. It’s a great time to be in Cape May!

As always, you can find our official count totals on Trektellen here, and our complete eBird checklist of the day’s observations here.

Bring on the next day!