Today's Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count had some 10mph winds from the NNW. Thankfully, it was nice and dry unlike yesterday's intermittent monsoons. The nocturnal movement was not nearly as strong as the previous nights. A total of 538 individuals of 57 species were counted.
The big highlight of the morning was a Clay-colored Sparrow that found two Chipping Sparrows to hang out with around the Sunset Beach parking lot. The sparrow passed overhead several times offering a great study in flight as well as calling its distinct flight call and chip.
Fourteen warbler species were recorded heading over this morning. The high counts were of the usual suspects - 27 American Redstarts, 49 Cape May Warblers, and 62 Northern Parulas. A single Yellow-breasted Chat shot through the bay bushes with the trickle of Gray Catbirds.
The overcast skies encouraged or highlighted several groups of Great Blue Herons totaling 25 this morning. Unfortunately, no little pink Floridians were mingling this morning.
Another nice surprise was two Northern Rough-winged Swallows working their way north along the bay. Rough-winged Swallows are perplexing in their migration on the shore. Most of their movement on the shore occurs in the early season from July through August with some stragglers through the beginning of September. They then reappear in late October in small numbers. This second push might be of a small wintering population in some of the larger eastern cities.
The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch had a great day with 1228 raptors including the new season high of 58 Peregrine Falcons. Other raptor totals include 192 Ospreys, 3 Bald Eagles, 26 Northern Harriers, 244 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 120 Cooper's Hawks, 36 Broad-winged Hawks, 441 American Kestrels, 107 Merlins, and one Mississippi Kite.
The pouring rain bands across the shore all day yesterday flooded much of the region which created proper conditions for Eastern Spadefoots to emerge and be surface active. This fascinating species lives underground in burrows much of the year only emerging after extreme rains.
Eastern Spadefoot
Don't take the Chance up north.
-Andrew
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/3748/20250924
Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20250924
