Today's Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count featured steady north winds once again, but today there was an essentially cloudless blue sky which made spotting high passerines a challenge. A majority of the flight was also out to the east today, where birds were almost entirely backlit and in many cases, impossible to identify. Despite the tough viewing conditions, a nice flight took place mostly in the first hour with 392 individuals and 39 species were counted.
The clear highlight of the day occurred near the end of the second hour when a Lark Sparrow dropped in to a locust bordering the parking lot! Lark Sparrows are a rare but annual vagrant to the Eastern Shore from the great plains and west. After perching for a moment and giving some distinctive flight calls, it shot off towards the campground and perched briefly in a small pine before moving off to the east towards Highway 13. The encounter was made all the better by the serendipitous arrival of CVWO's "Boss Lady" Nancy Barnhart, who arrived just in time to see the Lark Sparrow before it continued on its travels!
The season's second Common Nighthawk was nice to see out to the east just before sunrise. A decent warbler flight mostly in the first hour of the count featured the season's second Ovenbird and another Cape May Warbler, alongside a strong majority of American Redstarts making up the bulk of the flight with 50 northbound individuals counted. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers had another good day, with 58 counted, all but one moving north.
Over at the Kiptopeke Hawk Platform, a total of 20 early season raptors were counted including two more Harriers and six Broad-winged Hawks. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers also had a good day at the hawkwatch with 53 counted, as well as a significant movement of over 422 northbound Eastern Kingbirds in the first hour. These kingbirds likely started their flight somewhere north of Sunset Beach, as only 13 were counted there across the same duration.
Also of note at the hawkwatch, our new bird feeder setup has been installed and is open for hungry bird visitors! The counters are eager to see what species will attend the feeder throughout the fall. Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, and Northern Cardinal have been issued as individual predictions by the three counters for the first visitor to the new feeders. Only time will tell who, if anyone, is correct, though one thing we can count on for sure is that the squirrels will figure out a way onto the feeding station.
Light southwest winds return tomorrow and will likely stall out some migrants currently hoping to continue making their way south. Variety is the spice of birding on the Eastern Shore, and we will be interested to see what the wind shift brings.
Follow along with the action every day here on the CVWO Blog with our daily Eastern Shore Migration Updates, and be sure to check out our two Trektellen pages for real-time count updates:
Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20250827
Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20250827?sc=0
