The Gannet "Thing" IS On!

[A small part of a flock of over 1,000 Northern  Gannets sitting on Delaware Bay off the mouth of Cox Hall Creek, waiting for the rain to stop so they could resume fishing and migrating. Click to enlarge.]

A flock of over 1,000 Northern Gannets was a nice way to come down from a week in Eilat, Israel, where the Leica Cape May Bird Observatory American Dippers (me, captain Doug Gochfeld, Ben Barkley, and Tom Reed) competed in the Champions of the Flyway event. More on that later. For now. . .there are a LOT of birds migrating through Eilat right now. Like, we saw over 3,500 raptors of ~ 10 species (Steppe Buzzards, Steppe Eagles, Pallid Harriers, Imperial Eagles, Egyptian Vultures. . .) in a half hour of watching in the Eilat mountains.

This would be a very good weekend to ride the Cape May-Lewes Ferry to watch gannets, scoters, and Red-throated Loons.