Friday Bird News

It was a bit of a garbled flight this morning at Higbee Beach, with a lot of birds in the air going in all directions. Species involved included Yellow-rumped Warblers, American Robins, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a few others. Highlights from the two CMBO Autumn Weekend walks at Higbee included numbers of flyby Eastern Meadowlarks, Brown Creeper; Black-throated Green, Blackpoll, and Palm Warblers; Lincoln's and White-crowned Sparrows; bunches of thrashers; and a brief but good hawk flight as the front finally cleared mid-morning and we had a spell of north winds, which quickly went east.

I hear a Vesper Sparrow was at the meadows, and 2 Long-eared Owls were reported hunting there at dawn. The meadows walk had a lengthy view of an American Bittern in flight, according to Megan Crewe.

Off Cape May Point, there were lots and lots of Northern Gannets, some close, a Parasitic Jaeger, and a cluster of four ducks off Coral Avenue that contained male and female Black Scoters, a female Surf Scoter, and a female Common Eider. Avalon had a female King Eider today.

I understand the Roseate Spoonbill was not found at Brigantine today, wonder where that bird is.

About the weather. . .tomorrow's going to be crappy, but at least they're saying the thunder will hold off until noon ;>). With southeast winds and possible rain overnight tonight, birds that are here now are unlikely to leave, which is good, because there are a lot of birds, sparrows and kinglets and such. New nocturnal migrants are unlikely to come, unfortunately. A major west-east cold front is supposed to pass sometime Saturday night, so Sunday looks like a pretty fun day of birding, with northwest winds at 15 mph from midnight on. Will it be epic? Yeah, it could be.