Today’s Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count had south-southwest winds and mostly clear skies. Reverse migration was essentially at a standstill this morning, but eventually a few forward migrants started to pick up. A total of 19 species and 60 individuals were counted.
With negligible overnight migration, there were very few migrants in morning flight. The only warbler of the first hour happened to be a Wilson’s, one of the more uncommon migrants out here, reminding us that good birds occur on even the slowest days! The only other warblers were one each of American Redstart, Cape May, and Palm.
Forward migrants were also slow, but a slow trickle of raptors included a high Peregrine Falcon setting off towards the bay and eight Osprey migrating along the well-documented low flight line over the beach. The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch ended up having another sneakily good day despite the south winds with 168 Sharp-shinned and 143 American Kestrel counted.
South winds continue for the next several days before the return of northeast. The next few days will also probably be quite slow, though every day has the potential for something interesting!
Keep up with both of CVWO’s counts with our daily migration update here on the blog, and follow along live every morning on our Trektellen pages:
Sunset Beach Morning Flight: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20250923
Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20250923
