Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 25, 2025

Winds this morning were out of the north, an ideal setup for migratory activity especially with a strong liftoff last night over the northeast and northwest winds bringing lots of migrants down the mid-Atlantic coast and funneled down the Delmarva Peninsula. Late season migration was in force today during the Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count, and totals of 59 species and 7,975 individuals were counted. 

It was a sky full of birds this morning at Sunset Beach. Late fall was certainly in the air with a flight dominated by blackbirds, robins, Tree Swallows, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Red-winged Blackbirds were the dominant species with 2,455 counted southbound, mostly flocks of several dozen spread out throughout the morning. American Robins put on their best showing yet with 842, the majority southbound and many extremely high. Highlight species included four Red-shouldered Hawks, eight Rusty Blackbirds, a cooperative Nashville Warbler, and a Dickcissel. 

Common Loon

Blackpoll Warbler

Swamp Sparrow

Nashville Warbler

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a similarly busy day with many comparable species and counts. Bald Eagles dominated the moderate raptor flight with 19 counted, and it is only a matter of time before they are joined by the first Golden of the season. Yellow-rumped Warblers put on an impressive showing at the hawkwatch with 5,180 counted moving south, considerably more than recorded at Sunset. Seventeen Purple Finches, six Pine Siskins, and 32 Rusty Blackbirds were nice counts of these late season migrants. Songbirds foraging around the platform throughout the day included another Lincoln's Sparrow, Nashville and Tennessee Warblers, and the continuing Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow. 

Winds shifting slightly to the northeast may allow some migrants to depart the Eastern Shore, but many more will likely continue to filter in and the slight easterly component by midday may make for a better day at the hawkwatch than the past few days. Northeast winds will continue to build through the week with the next westerlies by next weekend. 

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251025

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251025

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 24, 2025

Light north winds made for another nice busy day at the Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count. Activity was noticeably better from the get go than the several preceding days, attributable to significantly calmer winds. A nice varied morning flight ensued with 51 species and 2932 individuals counted. 

Blackbirds contributed the most volume with 1145 Red-winged Blackbirds, 408 Brown-headed Cowbirds, 74 Common Grackles, and one Eastern Meadowlark counted, with Red-wings and cowbirds being predominately southbound. Yellow-rumped Warblers took a bit of break with "only" 173 southbound and 281 northbound counted, though with birds milling around all morning a number of active migrants likely blended in with general back-and-forth fluttering across the parking lot.  Other Sunset Beach highlights included a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher on the late side, a Dickcissel, an even hundred Turkey Vultures migrating, 91 Fish Crows, and a very surprising flock of seven Western Cattle-Egrets.

Western Cattle-Egrets

Peregrine Falcon

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch was slow on the raptor front, though 17 Bald Eagles were nice to see migrating. Turkey Vultures also had a nice tally of 259. Passerines continue to entertain around the platform with an impressive total of three Lincoln's Sparrows around the platform today as well as the continuing juvenile pale-lored White-crowned Sparrow and a Nashville Warbler. The abandonment of the main Hawk Counter by the Monarch Biologist and the Morning Flight Specialist in hopes of a Virginia Beach Gray Kingbird was in vain, and the weary counters returned to the Shore with no prize other than consolation Chipotle.

Lincoln's Sparrow

Northwest winds overnight already appear to be facilitating a significant night of migration, and tomorrow will likely be another nice day of movement on the Eastern Shore. Winter arrivals will likely increase in number and late migrants will take the opportunity to move. Hopefully there will be a surprise or two in the mix tomorrow!

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251024

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251024

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 22-23

This morning featured strong winds out of the West and blue skies. At the Sunset Beach Morning Flight totals of 32 species and 11,646 individuals were counted.

Once again Yellow-rumped Warblers led the charge with 10,695 southbound individuals, mostly on the eastern side of the peninsula. Other highlights on the morning included a very nice Forster's Tern flight with 228 individuals and a late Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. 

Over at the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch it was a slow day for raptors, but a few lingering songbirds kept things interesting. The Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, a Dickcissel and a Lincoln's Sparrow all provided great views throughout the morning. 

Clear skies and west winds continued this morning at Sunset Beach and totals of 4,912 individuals were counted. Yellow-rumped Warblers dominated as is expected these days, with 2,415 individuals counted northbound and 1,465 counted southbound. Other migrants were fairly slow, though blackbird numbers continue to slowly build with 558 Red-winged Blackbirds counted. 

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a moderate flight on westerlies, with a nice little falcon flight of 17 American Kestrels and 13 Merlins. The Lincoln's Sparrow, Dickcissel, and Nashville Warbler continued to linger around the platform. 

Westerly winds often bring migrants far from the interior to the coast. Coastal Virginia has seen a notable influx of Clay-colored Sparrows over the past few days, and one popped up this evening at Magothy Bay Natural Area Preserve. 

Clay-colored Sparrow

Westerly winds continue into tonight shifting around to the northwest and north by sunrise, which will likely lead to more migrant arrivals tomorrow. North winds continue through the rest of the week and weekend.

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251023

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251023

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 21, 2025

Clear conditions this morning following the cold front with westerly winds overnight and into the morning provided a strong flight at both of our migration sites. At Sunset Beach Morning Flight, totals of 34 species and 17,509 individuals were counted. 

Yellow-rumped Warblers are in full force right now on the Eastern Shore, and 15,752 were counted southbound at Sunset Beach. The massive Yellow-rump flightline at times extended from the Chesapeake Bay shoreline all the way east to Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR. A handful of other species could be picked out from the close flightline, including 24 Cape May, 17 Palm, three Black-throated Blue, and one each Blackpoll, Northern Parula, and Tennessee Warbler. Five Red-breasted Nuthatches and three Dickcissels were also picked out of the fray.

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a slower day for raptors but a great day for songbirds. Ten species of sparrow and 14 species of warbler were detected from the platform throughout the day! Highlights included an individual of the western Gambel's subspecies of White-crowned Sparrow, a Vesper Sparrow landing on the platform, a Dickcissel touching down, and two late Prairie Warblers.

White-crowned Sparrow (photo by Sage Church)

The hawkwatch also had a great spread of blackbirds with two Bobolink, 21 Eastern Meadowlark, a Baltimore Oriole, 467 Red-winged Blackbird, 931 Brown-headed Cowbird, 12 Rusty Blackbird, and 162 Common Grackle.  the transmitter-tagged Monarch from yesterday was also seen hanging around today.

South winds shift around to southwest overnight. Anything with a westerly component has potential to be interesting on the Eastern Shore, and if there are many birds left in the pipeline after today it could be another busy flight.

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251021

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251021

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 19-20, 2025

It has been a busy couple days on the Eastern Shore! Tonight’s double feature Eastern Shore Migration Update will include summaries for the past two days of our counts as well as some more exciting rarity news elsewhere on the shore.

South-southwest winds on Sunday Oct 19 did not yield a major reverse morning flight at Sunset Beach, but a significant southbound movement of Yellow-rumped Warblers tallied 16,762 in three hours of nonstop clicking! Thirteen first-of-season Brant were another highlight. The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a solid flight led by 51 Sharp-shinned Hawks and 16 American Kestrels.

A cold front moved through overnight and brought blasting west winds over the Chesapeake Bay to Sunset Beach this morning, suppressing activity and moving the Yellow-rumped Warblers far to the east, though a total of 2,716 were still counted moving south. There was some action at the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch with a few more falcons on the move today including 25 American Kestrels and 12 Merlins. A couple nice surprises were a late immature male Ruby-throated Hummingbird and 22 American White Pelicans way out to the east.

Monarch butterflies also had big news today, with two Monarchs at Kiptopeke receiving Bluetooth transmitters from Cellular Tracking Technologies to track their migratory movements! We will be eager to see where CVWO’s first two Monarchs, Nancy and Brian, flutter past on their migratory journeys this fall.

Nancy the Monarch with transmitter

Now for some rarity action! The biggest news of the weekend was the confirmation of Virginia’s first European Golden-Plover on Arbuckle Neck Road up in Accomack! Present since October 14, this plover was rediscovered and identified on the 19th and showed well for many today including many flashes of the diagnostic white underwing. This is only the seventh record of this species in the lower 48 United States. (Photo by Mario Balitbit)

European Golden-Plover

Just a couple days after the shore’s second Swainson’s Hawk of the fall, a third was discovered yesterday along Seaside Road near Machipongo! This bird, an intermediate juvenile, entertained a crowd of birders this afternoon as it hunted praying mantises along the edge of a woodlot. (Photo by Mario Balitbit)

Swainson’s Hawk

South winds return tomorrow, followed by a switch back to west later in the week. There’s no telling what might happen at this point in the season on the Eastern Shore, and there’s bound to be more surprises in the coming days!

Keep up with both of CVWO’s counts with our daily migration update on Facebook, Instagram, and the CVWO Blog: 

https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog-1

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251021

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251021

Eastern Shore Migration Uodate: October 17, 2025

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 14, 2025

North winds continued last night and allowed for ideal migratory conditions. Unlike last night, nocturnal migration was more moderate following the massive push the night before, but there were still lots of birds moving around today. The Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count totaled 54 species and 1834 individuals.

Highlights at Sunset Beach included more flocks of Fish Crows totaling 160, 28 Ring-necked Ducks, the season’s first three Pine Siskins, and a solid diversity of winter passerine movement. Birds today were a little more disorganized with notably southbound and northbound movements. A Chimney Swift on the late side hung around for most of the morning, readily recognizable as the same individual due to a distinctive bent primary on its right wing.

Chimney Swift

Cooper’s Hawk

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch also had a diverse overall flight with 4500 individuals and 56 species. A nice total of 24 Northern Harriers continue a good streak for that species lately as our counters steadily approach 1000 harriers for the season. Other highlights included a nice blackbird flight, a couple Purple Finches, and a Dickcissel.

The biggest surprise of the day came when an adult Swainson’s Hawk was spotted circling low over the town of Cheriton in the early afternoon! Already a significant rarity, it is especially unusual that multiple Swainson’s are detected on the Eastern Shore in a given fall, and an adult bird is even more exceptional! Hopefully this bird will stick around the area and be detected on one of our counts in the coming days.

Swainson’s Hawk

Keep up with both of CVWO’s counts with our daily migration update on Facebook, Instagram, and the CVWO Blog: 

https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog-1

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251017

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251017

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 16, 2025

The arrival of an overnight cold front allowed for high overnight migration across the northeast and mid Atlantic. There was a noticeable chill to the air and a brisk north wind this morning at the Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count. After a very busy morning of counting for a full five hours of nonstop morning flight, totals of 65 species and 35843 individuals counted. 

Yellow-rumped Warblers dominated the flight as expected with 1639 northbound birds counted. A further 1011 warbler sp. were mostly far out to the east and unidentifiable, despite the high probability nearly all of these were Yellow-rumped. Enough other warblers were moving to leave room for uncertainty that every single warbler was Yellow-rumped. Totals of other late-season warblers including 32 Nashville, 6 Black-throated Green, and 5 Nashville warblers were nice to see. 

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Nashville Warbler

A good array of other winter songbirds were on the move including both kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Eastern Phoebes, Brown Creepers, and the season's first Hermit Thrush and Purple Finch. Fish Crows also seem to be moving in flocks, with 18 counted. Good diversity of other migrants including raptors were migrating throughout the morning, and a surprise Cackling Goose was seen flying over in a flock of 19 Canada Goose. 

Eastern Meadowlark

Cackling Goose (second from left) 

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a slower flight today with 145 raptors counted. A few accipitrine hawks were moving early in the day, and a nice push of Northern Harriers took place in the evening. Like Sunset Beach, a number of winter passerines appear to be in in force, as well as two Lincoln's Sparrows.

Northerly winds should allow more migrants to move through the area tonight, though it will likely not be as busy a day as this morning. Winds will briefly shift around to the west and southwest before northly winds return early next week.

Keep up with both of CVWO’s counts with our daily migration update on Facebook, Instagram, and the CVWO Blog: 

https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog-1

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251016

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251016

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 15, 2025

Skies were clearer this morning during the Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count with scattered clouds and no rain in the area. North winds overnight allowed for more migratory movement than the past few days during the passing nor’easter. A nice diversity was moving throughout the day ahead of tonight’s arriving cold front. Totals of 46 species and 998 individuals were counted.

Morning flight today was moderate in volume be and fairly diverse. Songbirds had a better morning including 87 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 17 Northern Parulas, and 32 Gray Catbirds. An Eastern Meadowlark and two American Pipits were also nice to see as they moved north. The season’s first Northern Gannet southbound over the bay, and six Black Scoters were moving north close in. Great Blue Herons were moving south in small flocks all morning tallying 64. 

In the fourth hour a pink imposter was spotted in a flock of eight very distant Great Blue Herons— a Roseate Spoonbill! This is the third Northampton County record of Roseate Spoonbill, with the last record being a flyover bird at the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch two years ago to the day, also in with eight Great Blue Herons! Sometimes birds really do seem to appear like clockwork, though these were almost certainly different individuals.

Roseate Spoonbill with Great Blue Herons

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch was much busier today with clearer skies and north winds. A total of 329 raptors were counted, mostly Accipitrine hawks with a few more falcons moving in the afternoon. A juvenile Peregrine Falcon made some especially nice passes in the afternoon, and a couple Nashville Warblers kept counters company throughout the day.

Peregrine Falcon

Red-tailed Hawk

Nashville Warbler

The cold front arriving tonight seems primed to bring a significant arrival of migrants overnight along with chilly temperatures tomorrow. The following night will also have favorable migrations. Winds shift around to the southwest through the weekend before another shot of north winds arrives next week.

Keep up with both of CVWO’s counts with our daily migration update on Facebook, Instagram, and the CVWO Blog: 

https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog-1

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251015

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251015

Eastern Shore Migration Update: October 14, 2025

Conditions this morning on the lower Eastern Shore were very similar to yesterday morning, still windy and damp with strong 20-25 mph north winds and persistent mist. Overnight migration was again minimal, though slightly more reorienting migrants were counted this morning during the Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count. Though bay watching was slow, there were a few nice surprises and conditions eventually cleared allowing for a few birds to start flying. Totals of 29 species and 278 individuals were counted.

A couple of warblers were moving, highlighted by eight Northern Parulas and a Blackpoll Warbler. Very few waterfowl were migrating with only three distant Surf/Black Scoters, but a surprise northbound Snow Goose low over the bay and two Common Loons were nice to see. There was a nice later morning liftoff of raptors including 39 Sharp-shinned Hawks and a Red-shouldered Hawk missing many primary feathers on one wing.

Snow Goose

The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a slower day, with few raptors counted even after the mist stopped and skies cleared. Nine Osprey, 16 Sharp-shinned and eight Cooper’s were the most numerous species counted. A Lincoln’s Sparrow was hanging around again, typically a fairly rare migrant on the Eastern Shore. 

Late fall is well-known for vagrants and rarities on the Eastern Shore, and a Western Tanager at the Edward S. Brinkley Nature Preserve was a nice surprise in with a mixed flock. We will be keeping a close eye out for other strays with more favorable conditions in the coming days for more western migrants.

Western Tanager

Clear conditions tonight with a steady north wind provided ideal conditions for a big liftoff to our north, and tomorrow should be a much busier day than the last few days! Northerly winds continue for the rest of the week, and it should be a great time to see active migration and lots of late season migrants arriving wintering species like waterfowl and sparrows. As always, there’s the chance for something totally unexpected in the mix!

Keep up with both of CVWO’s counts with our daily migration update on Facebook, Instagram, and the CVWO Blog: 

https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog-1

Follow along with our counts live every morning on our Trektellen pages:

Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20251014

Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251014