It has been a slow two days on the shore. Winds on October 7 were a light 6mph from the south. The sky and bay were both incredibly slow. A total of 33 species and 209 individuals were counted.
Warblers were almost nonexistent with 10 total individuals of five species. The notable bird of the morning were two American Pipits flying high heading north. This is a first of the season for Sunset Beach.
Red Saddlebags
An impressive flight of Saddlebags picked up in the last hour of the count. Forty total saddlebags moved overhead with 36 Carolina, two Black, and two Red Saddlebags. Red Saddlebags have been putting on a show in Cape May with incredibly high numbers being found. This species can be tricky to identify, so it has likely been overlooked for the most part on the shore the past week. Red Saddlebags is a far southern species that often surges north in the fall. In years past on the Eastern Shore, I have noticed Red Saddlebags numbers increase after days of hot sunny south/southwest winds. It makes sense that with the conditions today some were active.
If October 7 was bad, October 8 was on another level of slow. There was not a single reverse migrant bird recorded this morning. Winds were strong 18 mph from the southwest throughout the count which made the bay pretty rough in the early morning hours. A total of 7 species and 896 individuals were counted.
The big star of the morning was 878 Blue-winged Teal moving south in the Chesapeake Bay. The southwest winds and overcast skies kept the teal moving throughout the morning along the eastern edge of the bay. Most of the flocks were in the range of 25-30 with two over a hundred and one group of 55. My hypothesis is that this more early migrant sensed the incoming strong cold front and decided today was the day to move south. It was interesting that no other species were mixed into the Blue-winged Teal flocks.
Tomorrow is forecasted to be an incredible flight along the mid-Atlantic coast. A strong cold front will likely bring many of our winter birds down as well as large waterfowl numbers in the bay. After today it will be really fascinating if there are any Blue-winged Teals tomorrow or if other waterfowl species will replace.
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/3748/20251005
Kiptopeke Hawkwatch: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/4022/20251005
