It was another fun morning at the dike on the second day of this front! Oddly, the sky was completely enveloped in clouds as I climbed up the dike this morning, but that did not stop the birds from moving. American Robins were up and at it in a somewhat chaotic flight-- throughout the morning there was a lower line of re-orienting birds headed north, and there were also high lines of southbound robins headed to the point and places beyond. By simply looking at the Trektellen totals, one might be tempted to think that there were ~4,500 robins that simply moved both directions, but all of this was happening simultaneously! The total number of American Robins for the morning was somewhere just over 9,300, and there were undoubtedly more sky-high flocks of robin-esque pepper flakes that I failed to find.
American Goldfinches were the other big mover of the morning, as 803 went north past the count, continuing a spectacular season for them. Purple Finches and House Finches were in moderate attendance (61 and 46 north, respectively), and there’s been somewhat of an uptick in Pine Siskin numbers (64 north), although plenty of them continue south. 24 Red-breasted Nuthatches were also good total for November, and 20 Golden-crowned and 3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and 2 Brown Creepers were nice additions as well.
Our late trickle of warblers continues, with 732 Yellow-rumps, 24 Blackpoll Warblers (pushing us over 3,800!), 6 Palm Warblers and a very late Chestnut-sided Warbler! A pair of northbound male Boat-tailed Grackles were the bonus highlight of the count .
Speaking of things seen at the HawkWatch, Tom Reed observed a stupendous southbound flight of American Robins, which he estimated at ~175,000 birds!! The vast majority of them continued south over the water towards Delaware, hence why we didn’t pick up on as much of the flight at Higbee. We’re reliant on northbound/re-orienting birds at the count (as it was designed to be), so if conditions had favored overnight drift more strongly, it could have been a much much better (and overwhelming) day for us. Although I certainly wish they had come by the dike, it’s cool enough to know what they chose to do this morning, which is one of the blessings of having many eyes and multiple points of coverage here. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Cape May is a complex system!
The forecast for this weekend is lining up quite nicely as a front is forecasted to arrive late Friday night and continue into early Monday morning. It’s bound to bring in more late season goodies, so if you wanted to experience some November weekend birding in Cape May, now’s the time!
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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