Light northwest winds finally reached Sunset Beach this morning and provided the first notable reverse migration flight of the season. Totals of 40 species and 862 individuals were counted.
Mornings with northwesterlies generally concentrate morning flight along the western bay shore of the peninsula. That was the case today, and the majority of morning flight took place overhead across the parking lot allowing for good views of migrants. Warblers had a good morning, the vast majority being 98 American Redstarts. There was a fair bit of early diversity sprinkled in with eight Black-and-white Warblers, four Northern Waterthrushes, three Northern Yellow Warblers and a shockingly early Yellow-rumped Warbler, an apparent “molt migrant” that dispersing a solid month and a half before the first few of its conspecifics typically reach the Shore.
Today also marked the first notable reverse Blue-gray Gnatcatcher flight with 93 of the 111 counted being reverse northbound migrants, likely to avoid the risk of westerly wind drift during their diurnal migration. Other songbird migrants included 230 Red-winged Blackbirds, 127 Barn Swallows, and the season’s first vireo, a White-eyed sneaking through the bushes mid-morning. A Northern Mockingbird returned to a favored spotting scope perch, and found it a nice place to relieve itself.


Calmer winds made for less productive bay watching overall, though hordes of Brown Pelicans, American Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls were attracted to trawling vessels hauling in their catch. Tern activity overall was low, though three Gull-billed Terns moving south over the highway early on were a clear highlight.
Southwest winds overnight with precipitation overnight to the north will likely limit nocturnal migration, though lighter westerlies by morning could well bring over any migrants that are moving through the area. Assessing the impact of multiple weather variables on migration without a strong event like a cold front is a challenge, so we’ll see what ends up happening!
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s daily migration update on CVWO social media and the CVWO blog: https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog
And follow along with the count live every morning on Trektellen: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20260812
















































