Avalon Seawatch

A group of Wood Ducks migrating in the early morning. The West winds have provided a good diversity and abundance of non-scoter ducks, which provides a good ID challenge in the morning light. Hello Everyone! Things have been quite busy over at the Seawatch the past few weeks; thanks to…...

The front of a flock of Surf Scoter. The Surf Scoter movement on the 28th was spectacular, with most of the flocks flying close to the jetty allowing for the best possible views of these migrants. Hello Everyone! This is the time of year we’ve been waiting for; the large…...

A flock of Brant flying by the Seawatch. Brant are a species small goose that winter in bays and coastlines, and have a black head and neck with a pale chest.   Hello everyone! Here’s an update for the Avalon Seawatch from October 7th to October 19th. It’s been so…...

Hello everyone! This is Nick Giordano, and this will be my first year counting the Avalon Seawatch! I am extremely excited to join the Cape May Bird Observatory team and witness the spectacular waterbird migration. I am also excited to be able to see everyone out at the Seawatch and…...

Hi everyone!  We’ve come to the end of another Seawatch season! This December has been somewhat slow, so rather than give a day-by-day breakdown, I’ll just point out some highlights then give you a quick overview of the season totals! December started out by continuing the November trend of gannets…...

This period started off slow but ramped up into quite a busy two weeks! Wednesday the 11th was overall slow, with a little over 1000 gannets and over 150 Laughing Gulls, but only 400 scoters and 170 Red-throated Loons. The 12th was similarly slow, with only 400 gannets, 400 Laughing…...

While we have passed our scoter peak, this week still brought plenty of scoter and increasing numbers of gannets and loons. The 4th was dominated by gannets, with 4716 southbound birds, which was the 9th largest day in the last 5 years.  Green-winged Teals had their 4th best day in…...

Our peak scoter movement continues from last week!  Read on to see the day-by-day breakdown, but Halloween was especially notable, with over 68,000 birds, the largest day I have counted at Avalon in my four years! October 28th picked up right where last week left off—with an additional 15,000 Surf…...

The scoters have arrived!  Massive scoter movement dominated this week, culminating in a 20,000+ bird day, a 35,000 bird day, two 40,000+ bird days, and a 50,000 bird day; back-to-back, in that order!  Naturally, Tom and I are quite exhausted from counting such crazy numbers, but here is a short…...

These past two weeks saw a noticeable uptick in movement, with our first 10,000+ bird days.  Double-crested Cormorants continued in good numbers daily, Black Scoters arrived in force, and a few new arrivals showed up.  Read on for brief daily summaries, and be sure to check out Trektellen.org for more…...