Never Quit

Presumably you've noticed the northeaster.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of birds around. Several people remarked to me today about numbers of sparrows in various places. On this morning's Bird Walk for All People, we managed good views of Winter Wren, both kinglets, and detected both Swainson's and Hermit Thrushes along Cambridge a bit west of Coral Avenue in Cape May Point. My eBird list for the morning reached 68 species, including such things as gannets and Parasitic Jaegers in the rips, hordes of Yellow-rumped Warblers of course, a couple Eastern Towhees near the hawkwatch, and a nice mix of ducks on Bunker Pond and Lily Lake. Even a few raptors were moving this morning, including the indomitable Peregrine Falcon (at least one, anyhow, which flipped the feather to the weather and launched across the bay), and multiple Ospreys.

It sort of looks like Sunday afternoon things (meaning the weather) will improve, with steady northwest winds forecast from then until Thursday afternoon. This means a couple things for birders. One is that, although nocturnal migration of songbirds is unlikely in the northeaster, there are birds around Cape May now, and even if large night migrations do not occur, landbirds have this tendency to filter southward, even during the day. They are unlikely to filter across the bay, so perhaps they will accumulate on Cape Island? Okay, so I'm being hopeful, but we'll see.

Raptor migration will be light except the real fliers, like Peregrines. But, seawatching could be very interesting, so trying the Avalon Seawatch, Stone Harbor, or Cape May Point are worthwhile.

And finally, when it does break, hoo boy it should be pretty fun birding.