FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Eastern Shore migration 7 November

[Phoebetria@xxxxxxx]

Yesterday saw thousands of American Robins sweep over the peninsula, although 
perhaps not as many as the 20,000 counted by Brian Sullivan on 3 November.  
At Wise Point in the morning, there was a tremendous amount of "sky traffic," 
with birds of many species criss-crossing in flocks at many levels, far too 
many birds to study carefully!  Among these were American Pipits, Palm 
Warblers, American Goldfinches, Cedar Waxwings, and House Finches (dozens), 
Purple Finches, Horned Larks, Hermit Thrushes, and Pine Siskins (perhaps 10 
each), as well as Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Myrtle 
Warblers, and American Robins (thousands).  There were probably 50,000 Tree 
Swallows on the Shore, with over 30,000 being in clouds over Fisherman Island 
following the powerful cold front of the previous night.  

The CBBT held a Harlequin Duck (on #2) still, four Hermit Thrushes (all HY), 
8 White-throated, 4 Song, 2 Field Sparrows, 7 Dark-eyed Juncos, 1 American 
Goldfinch, 1 Purple Sandpiper, 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls.  Interesting here 
was a juvenal-plumaged Ring-billed Gull, the fourth I've seen in the state 
this year (in the lower Chesapeake Bay, we almost never see this plumage at 
all), and by far the absolute latest juvenile of the species I've seen (by 
ca. 6 weeks); this was seen with Dorothy Mitchell and party.  

Cape May got its first Cave Swallow of the season yesterday; an hour's 
searching among the clouds of Tree Swallows yesterday produced nothing of 
note.  

Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA 

PS -- The note posted about NY's potential Broad-tailed Hummingbird was 
perhaps premature -- at least two people feel that an imm. female Rufous has 
not been completely ruled out, though hopefully new images of the tail and 
throat now posted will support an identification as Broad-tailed.  Images 
posted on the web unfortunately can be very misleading!

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