Higbee was Rockin'

[I just learned Tom Bailey found a Red-necked Stint at Brigantine at 11:00 a.m. today.]

I woke at 4:00 this morning with the intention of listening for flight calls for a while before hitting Higbee. The minute I stepped outside, I knew the front hadn't cleared - it was still muggy and hot - but figured, what the heck, I'm up, might as well give it a try.

I'm glad I did. At Norbury's Landing, I heard 179 flight notes from 5:00 to 5:30 a.m. and 486 from 5:30 to 6:00. Bobolinks and Veeries were by far the dominants, with Wood Thrushes, Northern Waterthrushes, Redstarts, and a few unidentified warblers.

Given that nocturnal flight, I decided to go to Cape May, rain or not - it rained hard sometimes, lightly sometimes, and not at all in patches for the early morning hours. Up on the dike at Higbee, Cameron was working his first good mixed flight of the year, with lots of redstarts, yellows, Northern Waterthrushes, Black-and-whites, and smaller numbers of other things. The Prothonotary Warbler picked up by Michael O'Brien, as it flew the wrong way, back into the woods, was a highlight.

It was a good flycatcher day, with the definite highlight being 3 different Olive-sided Flycatchers in the second field, plus 4 species of Empid represented. I'll let the list below speak for itself - except note that Cameron had two American Avocets sit down briefly at the dike, and Richard Crossley found Mourning and Cerulean Warblers, none of which wound up on my list. Also,my counts are conservative on many things.

Vince Elia told me there were a dozen Black Terns at the meadows this morning, and said the state park was also hopping with birds. The report from the CMBO Villas walk was "After a rainy start, the birds came out to feed. We had killer SCOPE views of YB chats feeding on the ground and tree-fulls of redstarts. A wonderful mixed flock of warblers contained blue-winged, yellow, yellow-throated, black & white, common yellow-throat and redstarts, as well as blue- gray gnatcatchers, house wren and Baltimore orioles - Leaders: K & R Horn, J Crawford, D Lord, MJ & C Slugg"

Location: Higbee Beach
Observation date: 8/23/09
Notes: stalled front over us, rainy sometimes, wind light and variable, but large area high pressure to NW
Number of species: 83

Mallard 10
Snowy Egret 3
Green Heron 2
Osprey 5
Cooper's Hawk 1
Black-bellied Plover 10
Semipalmated Plover 25
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Greater Yellowlegs 2
Lesser Yellowlegs 10
Whimbrel 35
Sanderling 5
Semipalmated Sandpiper 75
Least Sandpiper 20
Stilt Sandpiper 5
Short-billed Dowitcher 25
Laughing Gull 50
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 5
Least Tern 2
Forster's Tern 5
Royal Tern 2
Rock Pigeon 5
Mourning Dove 10
Chimney Swift 5
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 5
Red-bellied Woodpecker 3
Downy Woodpecker 5
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Olive-sided Flycatcher 3
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 1
Alder Flycatcher 1
Willow Flycatcher 1
Alder/Willow Flycatcher (Traill's) 3
Least Flycatcher 5
Great Crested Flycatcher 5
Eastern Kingbird 200
White-eyed Vireo 3
Red-eyed Vireo 15
Blue Jay 5
American Crow 10
Fish Crow 5
Purple Martin 15
Tree Swallow 10
Barn Swallow 10
Carolina Chickadee 5
Tufted Titmouse 5
Carolina Wren 10
House Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 15
Veery 2
American Robin 15
Gray Catbird 5
Northern Mockingbird 2
European Starling 20
Cedar Waxwing 50
Blue-winged Warbler 2
Tennessee Warbler 1
Yellow Warbler 50
Chestnut-sided Warbler 10
Magnolia Warbler 1
Blackburnian Warbler 5
Pine Warbler 1
Prairie Warbler 3
Black-and-white Warbler 20
American Redstart 100
Prothonotary Warbler 1
Worm-eating Warbler 1
Northern Waterthrush 30
Common Yellowthroat 10
Canada Warbler 5
Yellow-breasted Chat 1
Field Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 10
Blue Grosbeak 1
Indigo Bunting 5
Bobolink 50
Red-winged Blackbird 50
Common Grackle 10
Baltimore Oriole 25
House Finch 5
American Goldfinch 5