It was a surprisingly productive week given the number of days with south and southwesterly winds. Flights were consistent with excellent diversity throughout. Tuesday and Wednesday had nice northwesterly winds with strong flights of Blackpoll Warblers, Parulas, and Palm Warblers. Thursday brought light west winds and high overcast skies producing a solid flight of over 100 Cape May Warblers, our first White-breasted Nuthatch of the season, and a large push of over 700 Blue Jays.
This Marsh Wren was a nice surprise as it moved along the top of the dike.
The first few Pine Siskins arrived in our region this week, with 3 flying past the dike.
Spectacular swirling flocks of hundreds of Blue Jays circled around Cape Island and made their way past the dike. Over 2000 were counted this week.
It was a great week for diversity on the dike with a mix of scarcer migrants like this Connecticut Warbler. We had 4 fly by the dike in the last few days.
It was also a good week for Tennessee Warblers. 35 zipped by the dike this week.
You know fall is well on its way when there’s Yellow-rumped Warblers going by on a daily basis. It won’t be long before they flood in and become the most common warbler.
A number of Black-throated Blue Warblers have started flying by on a near daily basis. Flashy males like this one always catch your attention.
This coming week looks interesting with consistent strong southerlies and rain to start. Later in the week a few weak fronts pass and winds switch around to the west and then northwest. It should be a good week for a vagrant. Either, there will be some goods flight so be sure to keep up with our totals here https://njaudubon.org/watches/morning-flight/ or even better, come by and give us a visit!
Thanks for reading!
Daniel Irons
All photos by Daniel Irons
