Wow, what a spectacular morning. This was one of those “surrender to the spectacle” kind of days! Unfortunately, that’s not possible when it’s your job to count the flight!
The first fifteen minutes of the count were quiet, except for a busy stream of American Robins moving north along the eastern treeline. A text from Tom Reed at the HawkWatch notified us of birds arriving on the point from offshore. While I was still counting robins through the scope, a chorus of flight calls building up on the treeline signaled that things were going to get very busy, very fast. Blackpoll Warblers burst forth from the treeline, but unlike yesterday’s solo flight, they were mixed in with gobs of Yellow-rumped Warblers. On top of that, Palms, Northern Parulas, Cape Mays, and Black-throated Blues were also present in good numbers for the date, making for a tough challenge to pick out odd shapes and calls from the constant flow of butterbutts and fatpolls.
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| How many Pine Warblers escaped my notice today? The world may never know. |
Pretty soon, there was a major flight of a different species taking place on each of the main flight lines: mostly Blackpolls on the west line over the platform and the road, American Robins on the treeline far to the east, and Yellow-rumped Warblers moving down to middle of the impoundments. But to describe it as such would be all too easy. Purple Finches, American Goldfinches, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Cedar Waxwings were all also making their brief presence known along their independent migratory journeys. Add that to the warbler diversity, and it makes for one overwhelmed counter!
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| Mmmmmmm, raspberry. |
Not long into the flight, I raised a cry for aid over the RBA. Fortunately, Melissa Roach and Jerald Reb answered the call, taking a massive load off my shoulders as Melissa counted the multi-layered Yellow-rumped Warbler train and Jerald picked out songbird diversity from the west line that otherwise would’ve been missed.
Speaking of diversity, today was an excellent late-season flight with a diverse showing from many species (the morning’s eBird checklist tripped 6 filter limits and would have gotten another if we had had a few more Purple Finches). Melissa spotted our first White-breasted Nuthatch of the season for the count! We ended the morning with four of these stunners, which for as of yet unknown reasons move in past Higbee in dozens every *other* fall (much like Purple Finches). In a similar vein, we had our first Brown Creepers of the fall with 2 going north! Rounding out the diversity, 3 sapsuckers, 2 Blue-headed Vireos, a Nashville Warbler, 4 Pine Warblers, 4 Pine Siskins, an American Pipit, and 2 Dickcissels were great birds to add to the day’s tally.
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| Seeing commonly "resident" species in active migration adds a whole new special flavor! |
We also had another Yellow-billed Cuckoo that zoomed north, low over the phrags later in the morning. Once we had gotten into the late morning, the flight became dominated by American Goldfinches (407 north), Blue Jays (256 north), and distant warblers to the east, making for a much more straightforward count. All in all, it was a super fun (if very busy) morning. We ended with 3,080 Yellow-rumped Warblers, but the ultimate highlight of the day was realizing that we broke the all-time season high for Blackpoll Warbler! Today's 464 northbound individuals puts us at 2,983 birds (the previous high was 2,715 from 2008), and we still have some room yet to go. Here's to 3,000, and beyond!
Huge thanks to Melissa Roach, Jerald Reb, and Sarah Harris for assisting with today’s wild count! Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy the spectacle; it was a pleasure birding with all of you.
As always, you can find our official count totals on Trektellen here, and our complete eBird checklist of the day’s observations (with more photos) here.
Bring on the next day!
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