Evidently, the passage of last night's cold front was such that many Neotrops were tempted a-flight by southwest winds early in the eve, drifted out over the New York Bight, then caught out when the winds turned northwest. Under these conditions, nocturnal migrants drop in as soon as they reach the beach, then bounce along from east to west through the morning.
This morning's flight at Robert Moses SP was probably the best I've seen there since the epic flight of 10 May 2002. Although much smaller than that flight, I counted approximately three warblers per second from 8:30-9:00. Pat had seen birds passing at a similar rate earlier in the morning, and birds continued passing at an impressive rate until 9:30. For those not familiar with these re-orientation flights, it's worth noting that some species (e.g., flycatchers and thrushes) tend not to participate in the post-dawn westward bouncing, even though they might have come ashore in big numbers. As expected, I didn't connect with many of these birds as I monitored this morning's flight. I was surprised, however, at the poor showing made by some of the larger, stronger flyers (e.g., RB Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Baltimore Oriole) that are often very numerous in these kinds of flights. Anyway, some highlights were: 5 Solitary Sandpipers--three singles and one pair, all flying westward 1 Black-billed Cuckoo 3 RT Hummingbirds 250 Chimney Swifts--by far my highest count ever from the barrier beach; all flying westward, as were all the swallows listed below 21 Eastern Kingbirds--all flying westward 1 Blue Jay--usually absent from the barrier beach 1 Purple Martin 1 Northern Rough-winged Swallow 8 Bank Swallows 9 Cliff Swallows 400 Barn Swallows 58 Cedar Waxwings 20 species of warblers, including 110 Magnolia, 70 BT Blue, and 33 Canada I was able to identify only ca. 20% of the warblers that flew by--about 300 of the ca. 1,500 warblers I saw. We wound up seeing 103 species between RMSP and Jones Beach, and our only woodpecker of the day was a Red-Headed that Pat saw at Jones Beach just before we quit! Shai Mitra Bay Shore Think green before you print this email. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
