Flight and Flux

[Atlantic Brant are solidly in, e.g. the 600+ we had on today's Back Bay by Boat trip on the Osprey. Witmer Stone reported Brant as scarce in the 1930's - the time of a blight on their primary food, eelgrass. Brant have since switched to other food sources, and their numbers in coastal NJ have increased markedly. Photo by Don Freiday; click to enlarge all photos.]

After listening for 10 minutes along the bay in the wee hours this morning and hearing little (that's been the pattern with northwest winds), I moved over to Stone Harbor Point and heard 5-10 flight notes/minute in the 5-6 a.m. hour, the great majority being Yellow-rumped Warblers but also including 5 species of sparrows and some Great Blue Herons. There was thus an apparent movement of landbirds, though not a huge one.

Cape May Point State Park at dawn was kind - in the form of two Long-eared Owls flying around roughly over the yellow trail, out towards the Meadows, as seen from the red trail. Three separate American Bitterns flew past at different locations along the trails, and a Great-horned Owl teed up in a pine for a bit. A bat, perhaps a Hoary Bat, came in off the water, and numbers of sparrows were noticeably higher than yesterday.

[David Sibley on the Back Bay by Boat trip today.]

David Sibley remarked to me that he was at Higbee this morning and found it notable that there were multiple non-Yellow-rumped Warblers, e.g. Blackpolls, Black-and-white, and others. This was after the traditional checklist review at last night's autumn weekend dinner, during which, despite the relative lack of migrants yesterday, I blithely and without much remark ticked off Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Cape May, Northern Parula and Redstart. David said that during his time in Cape May during the early 80's, warblers other than Yellow-rumpeds were very unusual in late October.

We had about 3 Bald Eagles during the back bay cruise this morning, and got to talking about how this is a record year for eagles, with a single day total of 46 and a season total of roughly 350. David told me in 1980 they broke the all time record for eagles. . .with 18!! And that was unheard of.

The hawk flight today was outstanding, with several multi-hundred Sharp-shinned Hawk hours, a Peregrine, many Merlins and Kestrels, great looks at Red-shouldereds, still a few lingering Broad-wingeds. . . all showing what a northwest wind can do. The gannet show continues offshore, and a Stilt Sandpiper was a hawkwatch flyby.

Swallows swirled all around, with Barn and Rough-winged Swallows amongst the Tree Swallows. Doug Gochfeld had a good candidate for a Cave Swallow, it's only a matter of time until they get here. There's another change - Cave Swallow has gone from a first-record to a howling raritity to getting voted off the NJ review list in a very few years.

[These American Oystercatchers were on the south jetty at Cold Spring Inlet. Here's another bird in flux - for the better. Extirpated from NJ by 1896, they have now returned in numbers and hundreds can be seen in the Cape May coastal system, especially on mussel beds and mud flats around Hereford Inlet in fall. Not all bird population news is bad.]

Birds Left, None Came, Still Okay

The surprise today was that, other than the persistent south-southeast wind, the weather for birding was fine, with partial sun through 12:30 p.m. It's coming, however, "it" being heavy rain.

It seemed that many of the birds present yesterday left last night (into a south wind, surprisingly) - the Beanery definitely was low-volume, even accounting for the windy conditions. Bill Schul told me his yard, which features the "magic tree," was empty, and I hear Higbee was so light on birds that the Fall Weekend field trips there went out to the dunes to find gannets and scoters offshore (they did).

The Beanery had some cool stuff, however. Over a dozen Eastern Meadowlarks were up and down in the fields, and several kestrels hunted over the vineyard. We twice heard Winter Wren, I suspect the same bird since both were in the same area, near the "Protho spot" where the main path goes through the wet woods. White-crowned and Savannah Sparrows appeared several times, and a handsome male Belted Kingfisher posed at the "oxbow pond." We were unable to extract a definite Vesper Sparrow, but flushed two Wilson's Snipe from surprisingly dry areas in the fields near Stevens Street - a Merlin pursued the second of these at length until the snipe faked left, went right and shook the Merlin off - sweet! Pre-sunrise, 6:45 ish, I watched a Merlin fly out of the big trees near the Beanery parking lot, where I can only assume it spent the night.

A special observation was the Red-bellied Woodpecker, which perched flat-footed atop a telephone pole along Bayshore Road and caught some large insects, possibly wasps or hornets from a nest in the pole, with long reaching grabs with its bill.

A Harlequin Duck flew past the Avalon Seawatch today, the first I've heard of this fall. Sam Galick found a drake Common Eider off St. Peters in Cape May Point.

NOAA is still calling for the west-east front to pass around midnight, with northwest winds from then on. Mmm-mmm-mmm. . . we're all a little worried about a landbird flight, as in, it might not happen, because the front is passing a little late and there could be showers thereafter, but I am optimistic for day 3 of the Autumn Weekend. Hawk-watching will be good for sure Sunday, maybe great.

A Few More Reports from Friday

[Karl Lukens did a great job capturing this Vesper Sparrow yesterday at the South Cape Meadows a.k.a. the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge. Another Vesper was found at the Beanery. Click to enlarge.]

The Sea Watch had 20,000 birds yesterday, mostly scoters with lots of gannets and both loons. A female King Eider was another highlight there. Nick's got the full report up on View From the Field. Also there are reports from the hawk watch platform and Morning Flight, courtesy of Doug and Cameron. Both species of scaup were found on Bunker Pond yesterday.

All the expected shorebirds except Piping Plover were found at Stone Harbor/Nummy Island, including hundreds of Red Knots.

Dave Lord told me they a good quantity of Black-crowned Night-herons, and one Yellow-crowned, on Thorofare Island on the back bay boat trip yesterday.

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.

Nocturnal Flight

10 minutes listening along Delaware Bay, 5:55-6:05 a.m., yielded 25 flight notes of the following species, most common to least common: Chipping Sparrow, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Hermit Thrush, Swainson's Thrush, Saltmarsh Sparrow. Hopefully this means migrants on the ground in Cape May today. Winds were light from the east.

42 White-rumped Sandpipers

[Michael O'Brien photographed this White-rumped Sandpiper, a juvenile, one of 42 (!) at the Higbee Dike yesterday. Note the wingtip projection beyond the tail. As is true with most shorebirds, juvenile White-rumpeds migrate later than adults.]

They're Not All Yellow-rumpeds + Extralimital Sage Thrasher (not)

It sometimes felt like they were all Yellow-rumped Warblers today, thanks to a big morning flight push of these birds. But other species were around, including a Clay-colored Sparrow at the dike at Higbee Beach. Several Peregrines entertained at the Hawk Watch this morning with the "lesser" raptors, and a Parasitic Jaeger, not so far offshore, chased a Forster's Tern for a bit before sitting down on a fairly calm ocean and drifting westward. Lines of Gannets passed Cape May Point this morning, too. Tree Swallows swirled and landed on bayberry bushes, and on the beach, and at least 7 Pied-billed Grebes joined the mixture of ducks on Bunker Pond.

Multiple Eastern Meadowlarks and American Pipits were flyovers at the hawk watch, and I hear the Hidden Valley walk had a meadowlark teed up for scope views, a likely spot for that to happen.


[When asked, after a morning field trip, "What should I do next?" I often suggest trying the Rea Farm, a.k.a. the Beanery, for passerines and also hawks. This Nashville Warbler foraged a weedy edge at the Beanery when I took a break there at lunchtime today.]


[One of five Vesper Sparrows at the Beanery today around noon, a good count for this scarce sparrow. They were more or less in the center of the property, feeding on crabgrass and other weed seeds. I never made it to the "sparrow fields" at the west side of the property, where I bet there were more Vespers and other sparrows.]

[This is the Sandy Hook Sage Thrasher, photographed two days ago by Tom Boyle. The bird was NOT found today, at least not so far.]

The weather pattern for the coming CMBO Autumn Weekend is pretty confused, with cold fronts supposed to push through Friday pre-dawn and sometime Sunday morning. Unnsettled weather, including rain and possible thunder, is forecast in between - frankly, the forecast discussion reads like a badly called football game. With hawks there's a basic recipe: cold front passes, northwest winds build, we get hawks. With other birds, it's not so simple and thus the best I can say is tomorrow morning, and the rest of the weekend, should be very interesting. Fronts move birds, and rain can put them on the ground.