The past week has been full of changes in the world of migrating birds!
A cold front swept in on October 28th, and that morning there was a veritable rain of American Robins, with 21,353 counted! The winds were such that Karl and I were lucky enough to have robins streaming by the hundreds directly overhead, creating a magical-feeling morning! We saw our first Snow Geese on the 28th as well - 124, to be exact - 105 of which were dark-morph (Blue Geese). The dark-morph is generally much less common than the white, so this caused some excitement for those watching from the platform. The following day brought our first flock of Tundra Swans, with 36 spotted on the eastern horizon, as well as a continued robin invasion, with 23,337 counted! At the pace the robins are migrating, as well as their tendency to continue migrating far into November, it seems likely that they will soon overtake their nearest contender - Blue Jays - as our highest-count species for the season.
We also had our season daily high record for Northern Harriers on October 27th - 51 harriers were counted that day, with a number of them being adult males, which many of us find to be a particularly beautiful form of harrier! We also saw 1,027 Surf/Black Scoters (which can be difficult to discern at a far distance, so these two species are often lumped together when this is the case). Interestingly, we've noted many of these scoters cutting across the peninsula to go toward the bay - something of an unexpected behavior for these ducks, who are most often noted staying over the water.
On Halloween, we had our season daily high count for both Red-shouldered and Red-tailed Hawks - 31 and 71 respectively. There was a period of an hour or so where the sky seemed to be filled with numerous birds of both species, certainly making for some enjoyable hawkwatching!
