Sun. 2/17: Seawatching from Cape May Point

I occupied an hour this afternoon seawatching from Cape May Point, spending the majority of my time at the Coral Avenue beach-access, plus a few minutes at Alexander. The winds were out of the southeast, off the ocean...the kind of winds that often yield better-than-average seawatching results. And indeed, for it being the middle of the afternoon there were quite a few birds around.

The highlight for me was watching over 200 adult Northern Gannets heading out of the bay, presumably some early migrants. Scoter and Oldsquaw (aka Long-tailed Ducks) numbers appear to be on the upswing, and 23 Snow Buntings flew past as well, heading south over the beach.

Full list included-

Location: Cape May Point- Coral Ave
Observation date: 2/17/08
Number of species: 17
Brant 6
Surf Scoter 125
Black Scoter 40
dark-winged scoter sp. 30
Long-tailed Duck 45
Red-breasted Merganser 6
Red-throated Loon 35
Northern Gannet 203
Ruddy Turnstone 8
Sanderling 1
Purple Sandpiper 5
Bonaparte's Gull 15
Ring-billed Gull 20
Herring Gull 55
Great Black-backed Gull 7
Cedar Waxwing 12
Snow Bunting 23

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)