Southwest winds and heavy rain to the north overnight once again brought overnight migration to a halt. The southwesterlies also seemed to stall out diurnal forward migration, with very little moving around overall under the hot clear skies. Totals of 22 species and 473 individuals were counted.
In keeping with the death of overnight movement, reorienting warblers were incredibly slow for the date and only three American Redstarts, two Northern Yellow Warblers and one Black-and-white Warbler were counted. Eastern Kingbirds were present in large flocks foraging in the trees around the count site, though they constantly swirled around making their movements and numbers difficult to assess. The masses of kingbirds periodically took flight and rose into the air covering the sky, making for an impressive spectacle in spite of their lack of directed migratory movements. A single flock of 122 Bobolinks rose up from somewhere to the south of the count and seemed indecisive before eventually continuing southbound.
The most interesting sightings of the day occurred out over the Chesapeake Bay, where an immature Brown Booby appeared close in in the early morning showing very well as it dove high over the water. A dark immature Parasitic Jaeger also made a very close pass right by the pylons in the last hour moving steadily south, the fifth jaeger for the count this year. It will be interesting to see how the jaeger flight shapes up this fall, as by this point last season only two Parasitic Jaegers had been counted.
It was also a slow one up at the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch, where the raptor total for the day consisted of seven American Kestrels and four Osprey. Despite the slow day, two southbound Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks appeared out to the east of the platform, representing a first record for the hawkwatch! A pattern has yet to emerge from the few whistling-duck appearances on our counts so far this fall, but it will be interesting to continue to monitor their wanderings as the season progresses.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s daily migration update on CVWO social media and the CVWO blog: https://vawildliferesearch.org/cvwo-blog
And follow along with the count
live every morning on Trektellen: https://trektellen.nl/count/view/3748/20260828
