When a beach flight stands out as memorable to Ken, it means something; he's seen a lot of big flights out there. In trying to take stock of the day, I find myself not only agreeing with Ken, but becoming convinced more and more that this flight was unusually intriguing in many ways.
I was part of a group that conducted a stationary morning flight count, and my companions will attest that our total of 5 Hairy Woodpeckers had me freaking out a little bit. A quick comparison to my past records explains why--and also affirms Ken's perception of this species' usual scarcity on the barrier beach: since 1996 I've tallied just 8 Hairy Woodpeckers, vs. 28 Red-headed Woodpeckers at RMSP and the adjacent Lighthouse Tract. Among other relatively (or allegedly) sedentary species moving this morning were 12 Downies, 20 Red-bellies (possibly a local daily max), and a White-breasted Nut, and our total of 28 Northern Cardinals in obvious morning flight was a true spectacle of nature! Of course, these 66 novelties were gleaned from a deluge of literally tens of thousands of birds flying past, and I'm also reminded of another point that Ken made, that there is no completely adequate way to count birds during these events. Each type of effort has advantages and demerits, and each will be overwhelmed on a day like this. The most difficult species to count on days like this is, in my opinion, Myrtle Warbler, owing to its diverse modes of passage through the airspace and puckerbrush, and this is the species for which our stationary estimate differs most from Ken's. Although I haven't had a chance yet to completely decipher my notes, I'm convinced that we saw on the order of 20,000, passing throughout the morning on a broad front from oceanfront to bay, and at a wide range of heights. Although I didn't recognize at the time that this flight was larger than last Sunday's, my sample counts and rate estimates clearly indicate that it was immense. Our Pine Siskin tally was about 3,600; the difference from the Feustels' estimate in this case owing to the habit of this species' flocks' of calling least when largest; large flocks of ca. 100 routinely passed almost silently along the dune line. But the most intriguing thing about this morning involved the species that sometimes, but not always, commit to obvious morning flight. As might be expected at this date, Hermit Thrushes were heavily represented in the overnight flight, but these birds would not ordinarily be expected to move east to west after sunrise. Today, as on 3 Nov 2006 (see note, copied below), they were very frisky and pushed bush to bush quite a bit and even persisted in giving nocturnal fight calls from the brush, throughout this bright, glary day (one called as late as 3:00 pm, under full sun and a raging westerly breeze that streaked the Atlantic Ocean with white, as Eileen Wheeler and I discussed whether we were lucky or unlucky to have been weathered out of today's scheduled pelagic--lucky, I say!). For purposes of comparison, my drive-around tally of road-side Hermits Thrushes this afternoon was 65 today, vs. 422 on 3 Nov 2006. Among other species that sometimes do and sometimes don't engage in morning flight at Fire Island, Juncos and White-throated Sparrows were all in today--these two species were streaming east to west along the inlet shore at a prodigious rate for the first 40 minutes after sunrise. Again, I need to work carefully through my notes, but the back of the envelope estimates are 6,000 Juncos and 2,000 White-throats--both exceptional totals for a stationary count in fall. Even more amazing to me is my total for Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which overwhelmingly dominated Golden-crowned in the morning flight, with ca. 800 passing, mostly bush to bush between 7:20 and 11:50. And other mysteries remain. Song Sparrows were strikingly under-represented today, especially given the huge pushes of Juncos and White-throats, and it wasn't until my afternoon mop-up that I saw my first Swamp Sparrow. Taking everything into account, I think that Song Sparrows were genuinely scarce in last night's flight (and further under-detected in our stationary counts, because they don't engage in morning flight). But the paucity of Swamp Sparrows today was inexplicable--how could it be that I saw fewer Swampies than Hairy Woodpeckers! Shai Mitra Bay Shore >3 November 2006 >Hi everyone, > >The morning flight was very impressive today along the barrier beach at Robert >Moses State Park, Suffolk. > >Between 6:45 and 8:15, my estimates of the numbers of birds sweeping >along the dunes were on the order of 50,000 Red-winged Blackbirds, 10,000 >American Robins, and 1,000 Cedar Waxwings. There were at least 3,000 White- >throated Sparrows, and 1K each of Junco and Myrtle Warbler on the ground. GC >Kinglets, a staple feature (in the multi-hundreds) of recent coastal flights, >were >almost completely absent, but numbers of RC Kinglets, Hermit Thrushes, Phoebes >were impressive. > >I wanted to get the word out in case others are able to bird the coast today, >and to >compare migration notes with observers in other parts of the state. I returned to Robert Moses SP on Friday afternoon and assessed the aftermath of the first phase of this weekend’s flight. The diurnal migrants (Robins, waxwings, blackbirds, etc.) were long gone by the afternoon, but various nocturnal migrants had reoriented and assembled in enormous numbers. Most shocking to me were the numbers of Hermit Thrushes and Chipping Sparrows. Hermit Thrush is a species we generally record in single digits and for which I can find no previous triple-digit count in my records. Double-digit counts of Chipping Sparrows are pretty routine, but triple digits are very unusual on the barrier beach. In the morning, Pat and I had been amazed to count 80 Hermits (many which were giving flight calls from the ground!) and 200 Chippies. On my return, I realized immediately that many more of both had hopped in from the east and/or emerged from the puckerbrush. By driving the loop road and circling the two main parking lots at 25 mph, I counted 422 Hermit Thrushes easily visible along the grassy margins. This number does not include any I missed among the thousands of White-throated Sparrows, nor the multitudes that later investigation proved were still lurking within the vegetation throughout the park. Actual counts were simply not possible for many other species, but I put some care into estimates of 10,000 White-throated Sparrows (many more than in the morning) and 500 Chipping Sparrows (like HETH, beyond any prior experience). Saturday brought a very nice morning flight that seemed downright dull compared to Friday’s. For most species, the numbers on the ground were much reduced from Friday but still very impressive. Chipping Sparrow was again an exception, with at least 750 at RMSP alone. Chippies were unique among the abundant landbirds in appearing in larger numbers on Saturday than on Friday. I’m used to seeing flocks of Myrtle Warblers loping in from the east throughout the day during big flights, but I cannot recall ever before seeing flocks of Chipping Sparrows materializing above the Fire Island Lighthouse, flying in from the east, and settling down to feed among the earlier-arriving hordes at RMSP. Sunday was warm and relatively windless, with a further reduction in overall numbers (though still very impressive by any normal standards). We scoured RMSP again and finally ventured west to Jones Beach. We conducted another roadside Hermit Thrush count and tallied 313 between Captree and West End, plus at least 50 more at West End itself. Some new statewide maxima were set this weekend, and we are continuing to collect records from the many observers afield on LI this weekend. Best, Shai Mitra ________________________________ Celebrate Italian Heritage with a Special Broadway Benefit Concert by the World’s Longest Running Phantom in support of the CSI Italian Studies program><http://csitoday.com/events/franc-dambrosios-broadway-the-phantom-unmasked/> -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
