While the past few days of south winds were extremely slow, today was an excellent change of pace! Strong northwest winds overnight and throughout the day on the heels of the passing tropical storm brought a lot of birds into Cape May. Most importantly, Erik had a record-breaking American Kestrel day at the Hawkwatch, with 5406 kestrels, a new single-day record! I was lucky enough myself to get 75 from the Seawatch--the second highest total for here!
Very few scoters were moving today, but over 1700 cormorants kept me busy scanning the flight line over Sea Isle, as did the kestrels and Merlins also moving over Sea Isle. Many smaller birds that had gotten pushed out to sea overnight slowly came back in throughout the day, including Blackpoll, Cape May, Palm, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, as well as 260(!) Chimney Swifts, an Eastern Phoebe, an Eastern Meadowlark, and lots of Tree Swallows!
There was also a nice liftoff of egrets and herons in the afternoon and evening, with 91 Great Blue Herons, 145 Great Egrets, 173 Snowy Egrets, 190 egret species (very distant and hazy!), and 68 Black-crowned Night-Herons at dusk (the second highest single-day total)!
Overall, while slow on the waterbird front, it was an excellent and busy day for landbirds (and cormorants, the honorary landbirds)!
Check out the full eBird checklist here: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49150192
And check out the Trektellen totals here: http://trektellen.org/count/view/1747/20181012
There are more NW winds ahead, which could lead to interesting sightings, but possibly slow seawatching!
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