It was a howling ripper on the Higbee dike today! Driving rain and hail started the count, kicking me off the dike in the first 15 minutes. I only stayed in my car for another 15 minutes because the precipitation passed through so quickly, and then birds started flying in its wake. Northwest winds were sustained throughout the count at around 25 mph with gusts into 30 mph. There were literally warblers that I couldn’t identify because I was shivering so much from being wet in the wind! These conditions strongly influenced the flight lines today by largely keeping songbirds low and along the dunes or even just above the road.
Much like the first day of the cold front that came through on October 16th, Blackpoll Warblers were flying in big numbers today. We had 442 northbound individuals today, and we are nearly 1,000 birds over the previous season-high! I hope to hypothesize about why this might be in future posts, but not tonight. Yellow-rumped Warblers were also moving through the dunes but in limited numbers (for their standards), with 684 northbound.
Although today’s flight was fun, there was a much better flight to be had at the Coral Avenue dune crossing. Sam Wilson had somewhat fewer Blackpoll Warblers but nearly 10,000 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 900 American Goldfinches, 250 Pine Siskins, and 130 Purple Finches! Just another reminder Cape May is a system, and flights can be better for certain species at different places depending on the conditions. However, I think the day will belong to Higbee tomorrow with the lighter NW and lots and lots of birds up on the radar tonight! It should be a great day across Cape May in general though.
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!
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