There was a great flight last night, so despite less-than-optimal conditions, I began my day today at Sandy Point. Moderate west winds at dusk diminished rapidly, and the air was calm most of the night (allowing this morning’s temps to bottom out in the low 40’s!). However, because of the volume of last night’s movement, there were in fact quite a few birds around here this morning. However, many were flying high, and most were departing Cousin’s Island to the south of Sandy Point, so my success rate of identification was even lower – these birds were just too high and too far away to do anything but tally. (The species list is below).

Here's the 10:00pm radar:

The 2:00am radar:

And the 5:00am:

Lots o' birds overhead last night!

Then, I met up with an old friend from NJ, Rick, who was in town visiting his brother. Rick and I headed down to Scarborough Marsh to poke around – this was Rick’s first visit to this location. We hit Pine Point Beach, Pine Point, and Pelreco, with very little to show for it, except for a “Western” Willet, the larger and rare-in-Maine western subspecies (for now) was feeding with 3 apparent “Eastern” Willets in Jones Creek. I say “apparent” only because I am not yet completely comfortable with separating these two soon-to-be species. Small numbers of the other, more expected, shorebirds were scattered about.

After a stop at Seavy’s Landing – Ed had found a Sandhill Crane in the marsh near here this morning, but the crane was AWOL now – we walked Eastern Rd out to the salt pannes. The pannes were mostly dry now, even with our weekend rains, and therefore very few shorebirds were present. However, the stroll gave us more time to chat, as Rick was actually “working” today – he was interviewing me for the new Cape May Bird Observatory online magazine (he must have been really desperate for subjects!). We did see something while scanning from the bridge on the Eastern Road Trail, in the distance, seriously distorted by heat shimmer that very well could have been the crane! Or a Great Blue Heron, or a stick . . .

Meanwhile, back at the store, Jeannette was conducting our very informal “Store Hawkwatch,” right out our front door. A few years ago, we noticed that our store falls directly under a flight line of migrating raptors in fall. Therefore, to satiate the biologists that still roil within us, we started sampling this flight by counting hawks for an hour a day each day for 5 weeks each fall.

We began our third annual count yesterday, tallying 8 raptors (3 Turkey Vultures, 2 Ospreys, 1 Broad-winged Hawk, and 2 American Kestrels on a moderate west wind and perfectly partly cloudy skies.

Unfortunately, with almost no wind and no clouds this morning, we were skunked, but the count will continue daily, weather permitting and not on Tuesdays, from now until October 15th. Join us for hawk identification tips and to enjoy the migration phenomena! Last year, we tallied 353 individuals of 12 species. In 2005, we tallied 547 individuals. Our goal for this year is to break 600 birds.

Daily counts are entered onto the News Page of our website

And, as I mentioned, here’s this morning’s Sandy Point Count:
Location: Sandy Point Beach, Cousin's Island, Yarmouth
Observation date: 9/13/07
Notes: Moderate West winds overnight, diminishing to calm. Clear
all night. Clear and calm in morning. Most birds were moving high overhead, to the south of Sandy Point. 6:23 am to 8:00am.

118 unidentified flyovers.

Number of species: 42

American Black Duck X
Common Loon 3
Double-crested Cormorant X
Snowy Egret X
Laughing Gull X
Bonaparte's Gull X
Ring-billed Gull X
Herring Gull X
Great Black-backed Gull X
Mourning Dove X
Belted Kingfisher X
Downy Woodpecker X
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Least Flycatcher 1
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 5
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Black-capped Chickadee 6
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Swainson's Thrush 1
Gray Catbird 6
European Starling X
Cedar Waxwing 15
Nashville Warbler 2
Northern Parula 9
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 3
Black-throated Green Warbler 22
Pine Warbler 1
Blackpoll Warbler 6
Black-and-white Warbler 2
American Redstart 8
Common Yellowthroat 1
Scarlet Tanager 2
Song Sparrow X
White-throated Sparrow 9
Northern Cardinal X
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 3
Bobolink 3
Baltimore Oriole 1
American Goldfinch X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)