Hola Birders,
It was a black morning at Kiptopeke today. The varied sheens, hues and tints of
Corvids, Icterids, Cormorants and Scoters dominated the morning flight. The
'whoosh's of feather on feather as wings clipped to a pulmonary beat melted
together in syncopated harmony with the endless 'keks' that rang out of each
horizontally ovular flock tracing crooked South-bound paths. Murders of brute
like Fish Crows chimed in as they smacked the air with large wings. Above,
disordered flocks of Cormorant wandered the sky like groups of drunk Boston
fans going home from the bar late last night. Over the bay, strings of Scoters
scampered along the horizon "food! food! where's the food!" they seemed to say
with each quick beat. This morning the sky was turbulent; frothing with the
hurried flight of hormonally supercharged migrants. You should of been there!
On to raptors...
Today's flight was varied. A few bursts of sunlight and blue sky battled out
for a peek through our soup like cloud layer. At those times migrant vultures
and raptors flew. In the intervals I dreamed up the above paragraph. Fifty
percent of today's count flew in a window of roughly less than two hours
(between Noon and 2pm). The early morning was slow and by Five the flight was
dead. This is a mirror of yesterdays flight. Today Ospreys were recorded in
each count hour (something that hasn't happened for a while). Here's the break
down for today, (each category is followed by season totals to date):
BLVU: 3, 449
TUVU: 91, 676
OSPR: 26, 1639
BAEA: 3, 91
NOHA: 5, 341
SSHA: 113, 3915
COHA: 32, 1518
RSHA: 1,11
BWHA: 0, 947
SWHA: 0, 1
RTHA: 17, 96
AMKE: 33, 2511
MERL: 9, 1549
PEFA: 4, 682
UnAcc: 1, 14
Total: 338, 14440
Please check out www.hawkcount.org for more detailed count information from
Kiptopeke and your other local hawkwatches.
Other Birds and Butterflies:
Today's flight of Icterids - mostly Redwings - totaled over 10,000. Cormorant
numbers were in the thousands. Fish Crows and Surf Scoters were in the
hundreds. Large Flocks of Tree Swallows continue to be present in the early
mornings and late afternoons. Yesterday's birds included:
Chimney Swift: 2
Common Nighthawk: 1
Common Loon: 7
Cape May Warbler: 1
Today 5 Common Loon flew nearby and a Chimney Swift was re-recorded.
Shorebirds were moving in small groups: three Greater Yellowlegs were
identified along with several small Calidris and many Black-bellied Plover and
some Killdeer. Oh, there's a few Yellow-rumps still present:) I saw my
first/only Monarch in two days while scanning for stratospheric striati today
too! Boy was she up there!
Good day and Good birding,
-Sam Stuart
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