Seasonal Research

MONTCLAIR HAWKWATCH UPDATE – October 13th to 16th

The weather was tough this week with Monday and Friday being washed out and Tuesday’s count being delayed; however, migration continued and our cast of characters shifted a bit to reflect the changing season. Turkey Vultures are dominating the scene while the ratio of Sharp-shinned to Cooper’s Hawks is widening…...

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MORNING FLIGHT UPDATE – October 18th

It’s really looking like fall in Cape May with leaves changing, temps dropping, and winter species arriving. The overall trend this fall continued as consistent cold fronts brought northwest winds and lots of birds to Cape May. A couple impressive days that stood out were the 14th and the 17th,…...

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MONTCLAIR HAWKWATCH UPDATE – October 5th to 11th

The morning of October 5th was dominated by songbirds as noisy flocks of Pine Siskins and Purple Finches bounced past the watch, a sure sign of the season. As the day went on, the finches quieted down and any shred of cloud cover left us. This made for a challenging…...

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AVALON SEAWATCH UPDATE – October 7th to 20th

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…...

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CAPE MAY HAWKWATCH UPDATE – October 16th to 22nd

Unfortunately, migration was mostly at a standstill this week at the Cape May Hawkwatch sponsored by Swarovski Optik. Up until this week, migration was more or less nonstop minus a few bad days here and there. This week saw only 1 solid day of migration. The other 6 days consisted…...

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CAPE MAY HAWKWATCH UPDATE – OCTOBER 9th – 15th

October continues to roll on with exceptional hawk migrations at the Cape May Hawkwatch sponsored by Swarovski Optik. The NW winds continued to blow throughout the region. And as we all know, there’s nothing better than NW winds in October in Cape May. The week started off with yet another…...

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MONTCLAIR HAWKWATCH UPDATE – OCTOBER 9TH

Saying Goodbye to September and Remembering a Montclair Icon As we round out the month of September, we reluctantly say goodbye to peak season for Broad-winged Hawks. This week’s total was just 51 individuals. What was a down week for raptors overall hosted a large diversity of songbirds including many…...

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AVALON SEAWATCH UPDATE – OCTOBER 6TH

Hi everyone! This is David Weber, and I’m back for my 4th year counting the Avalon Seawatch!  Time sure does fly by!  I’ll be posting weekly updates from here on out, and in this post I’ll update you on the first two weeks of the count so far in 2020…...

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CAPE MAY HAWKWATCH UPDATE – October 1st – 8th

October started out with a bang at the Cape May Hawkwatch sponsored by Swarovski Optik. We saw a healthy amount of NW winds, allowing the floodgates to open, and migrants to pour over the hawkwatch. Every day this week reached triple digit totals of raptors and three of those days…...

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MORNING FLIGHT UPDATE – OCTOBER 4th (another mega flight!)

Flights this week were consistently good with a few days that really stood out. Strong diversity continued as well with multiple mornings having over 20 species of warblers.  As a whole this year, I feel very fortunate to have such good weather conditions on a regular basis; hopefully, this trend…...

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