The anticipated cold front arrived later than expected, rolling in during the count period today. Unlucky, but we had such good fortune in October that it’s impossible to complain at this point. Strong winds virtually shut down any songbird activity that would have been present, as only a few handfuls of robins, blackbirds Yellow-rumps, goldfinches, and siskins were seen headed north. I can at least empathize with them for not wanting to fly on those conditions, as the 30+ mph gusts of wind that pushed me around the dike all morning provided a good first-hand lesson in the wind drift that these migratory songbirds face. The major perk of the morning was watching the cold front physically roll in across the sky in a couple of hours, quite the beautiful sight. That’s just one of the many things I wouldn’t have noticed had birds not opened my eyes to so many wonders of the world.
Anyways, the second day of a front tends to be better for diversity at Morning Flight, since the winds are usually tamer and will have blown that direction all night whereas they might have started too late on the first night, as was the case here. That’s a long way of saying tomorrow should be the awaited day! Fingers crossed for something special!
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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