What it Was. . .and Will Be Again

Several hundred thousand birds, is what.  10's and 10's of thousands of Yellow-rumped Wablers, Dark-eyed Juncos, other sparrows. The roads and lawns were littered with these birds, they rose in waves like thick smoke over the fields first thing this morning at Higbee Beach. Meanwhile tens of thousands of American Robins, and Red-winged Blackbirds flew overhead. Hundreds of American Woodcock, hundreds or thousands of Hermit Thrushes, dozens of Pine Siskins, Purple Finches. . . 3rd state record Common Ground-dove at Cape May Point State Park (flew, not seen since). 2 Golden Eagles. A LeConte's Sparrow found dead on the road. 40 Cave Swallows. Lincoln's, Vesper, White-crowned Sparrows in front of the hawk watch.  A tantalizing bluebird sp.  The counters have reports up on View from the Field already, and early on I tried to keep up with tweets , but it got too crazy.  We'll try to sum up with more details and photos soon, but how do you photograph a fallout, or make the picture with words?

And, the thing is, it is happening again tonight, flight calls like crazy and the radar is lit up.  Wind are to be northwest all night and through tomorrow morning, so who knows what the passerines will be like, other than good to awesome, and the hawks will fly at least for the first part of the day.  I can't say it will be as epic as today, but I can't say it won't be, either.