With a strong cold front passing through late in the afternoon yesterday, skies had cleared by sunset and birds were on the move. A steady NW wind slowly diminished, blowing very lightly by dawn.

10 minutes of listening last night (9:30-9:40pm) produced 40 calls. And clearly, by the looks of the 10pm and midnight radar images, there were lots of birds in the air . . .

But, by 2:00am, the volume of birds was reduced . . .

And by 5:00am, migration was relatively light . . .

Now, if I am interpreting all of this correctly (and I might not be, as I’m a rookie at this radar stuff), a lot of birds departed the region last night, but a much smaller number arrived.

However, with that northwesterly component continuing for most of the night, Sandy Point Beach was fairly productive. 12 species of warblers, including a tardy Northern Waterthrush and a uncommon (especially here) Prairie Warbler, with Blackpoll Warblers dominating. As usual, most of the birds were unidentified high-flying silhouettes, but even if I can’t identify them, I am fascinated by this morning flight phenomena. The complete list is below.

A short walk at Bayview Preserve produced a very surprising dearth of warblers. 31 Green-winged Teal and a Pied-billed Grebe on the pond were good for the location, however. Meanwhile, Jeannette took Sasha for a walk at Florida Lake Park and she too saw very few warblers. So, it seems that - at least based on our observations from this morning – a lot more migrants did indeed leave the area than arrived last night.

With the decent northwest wind, Jeannette and I were hoping for a decent hawk flight for our store’s daily mini-hawkwatch. And, we were not disappointed. We counted from 10 to noon today (expanding beyond our usual one-hour sample), and tallied 81 raptors. 61 Broad-winged Hawks, 8 Sharp-shinned Hawks, a very impressive 5 juvenile Bald Eagles, 3 Ospreys, 2 American Kestrels, 1 Cooper’s Hawk, and 1 Turkey Vulture – not too shabby for right out our front door in the middle of a parking lot! And, since there was not a single cloud in the sky for most of our count, who knows how many passed us by? In fact, one of the small kettles of Broad-wings was only noticed when we spotted them against the backdrop of some sky-writing by some planes presumably from the Brunswick Air Show!

So, it looks like we’ll be under high pressure for the next few nights, with clear and calm conditions. This will provide little impediment to migrants, so I would expect movements in and out of the area each night, but no major concentrations, and probably little action at Sandy Point (unless today’s NW wind continues into the night and therefore produces birds over the water for tomorrow morning).

Maybe that means I'll finally take the time to catch up with a Buff-breasted Sandpiper for the season (they're being seen in slightly-larger than average numbers so far this fall). Or, maybe I'll just sit and marvel at the amount of birds at our store's feeders. A flock of about 200 Common Grackles is leading the charge, and our House Sparrow flock has ballooned to 73 birds as of yesterday! Along with our usual cast of characters, that is resulting in us going through about 15 pounds of seed A DAY!

That's almost as quick as the 42 points Rutgers scored in the 2ND QUARTER yesterday on their way to a 59-0 laugher. The 6 "drives" combined for all of 92 seconds! Yup, 6 touchdowns in a minute and a half. Sure, it was against Norfolk State, but hey, it wasn't that long ago when we were on the OTHER side of those scores (I remember an 80-0 and a 77-7 loss when I was in school!). Times they are a'changing: Rutgers is 3-0. And Notre Dame is 0-3. And the 'Sox are on their way to a division title. And hell is, apparently, freezing over. But I digress . . .

Here are those previously promised totals from Sandy Point this am:

Location: Sandy Point Beach, Cousin's Island, Yarmouth
Observation date: 9/16/07
Notes: Light to moderate NW overnight after late-day cold front
yesterday. Clear and cool (~40F) in am, with light NW increasing after
sunrise. 6:20-8:15 am (sunrise=6:21am). 214 Unidentified overhead.
Number of species: 46

Canada Goose 40
American Black Duck X
Common Eider X
Common Loon 2
Double-crested Cormorant X
Great Blue Heron X
Snowy Egret X
American Kestrel 2
Laughing Gull X
Bonaparte's Gull X
Ring-billed Gull X
Herring Gull X
Great Black-backed Gull X
Rock Pigeon X
Mourning Dove X
Belted Kingfisher X
Downy Woodpecker X
Northern Flicker 4
Least Flycatcher 2 Plus one unidentified Empid.
Red-eyed Vireo 12
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Common Raven 1
Black-capped Chickadee 18 Finally flew across water after about
10 false-starts.
Gray Catbird X
European Starling X
American Pipit 1
Cedar Waxwing X
Nashville Warbler 4
Northern Parula 20
Yellow Warbler 9
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 13
Prairie Warbler 1
Blackpoll Warbler 54
American Redstart 15
Northern Waterthrush 1
Common Yellowthroat 3
Scarlet Tanager 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 4
Bobolink 3
Purple Finch 2
American Goldfinch X

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