Today marked the first day of the second season of the Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count! It was a diverse morning for the start of the season on steady southwest winds, with a total of 638 individuals and 38 species counted. Fittingly, the first bird counted for the official start of the season was one of the day’s three Louisiana Waterthrushes, a scarce and iconic and early season migrant on the Eastern Shore!
Other highlights of the morning included three Northern Yellow Warblers, a noticeable southbound push of Brown Pelicans (51), a strong swallow flight heavily dominated by Purple Martins (375) with a smattering of Northern Rough-winged Swallows (25), a high count for a locally uncommon migrant. The morning was capped by a nice Wilson’s Storm-Petrel southbound over the bay spotted by count coordinator Andrew Rapp, a fairly rare sight at Sunset with only a handful of detections last season.
Conditions shift tomorrow with a stronger southeast wind,
which likely will stall out all but the most persistent early season migrants.
Still, there’s no telling what a morning at Sunset could hold, and it’s
possible some diurnal forward migrants like swallows will still attempt
movement.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s daily migration update here on the CVWO
blog!
And follow along live every morning on Trektellen: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20260801
