The heat wave continued this morning at Sunset Beach with clear skies and beating heat in the first two hours before low cloud cover rolled in in the last hour. Totals of 27 species and 629 individuals were counted.
The highlights today once again came from the Chesapeake Bay, where active feeding flocks twinkled far out on the horizon. Though views were distant, five likely continuing Brown Boobies were exciting to see feeding with distant Laughing Gulls before they put down on the water and disappeared. A Parasitic Jaeger also showed well for a few minutes displaying classic kleptoparasite behavior as it endlessly harassed a distant tern. Five Blue-winged Teal were also counted, a flock of four and a singleton late in the morning moving south fairly close in.
Eastern Kingbirds were by far the predominant migrant counted overall, totaling 492 mostly southbound individuals though as in previous days, many birds were swirling around the count site and not counted. Other forward migrants were slow with 25 each of Purple Martin and Barn Swallow, 11 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and six Bobolinks. Warblers remained incredibly slow with the lack of overnight migration.
The Kiptopeke Hawkwatch was also very slow today under hot clear skies. Three Osprey and two Northern Harriers were the only raptors counted, and other migrants were likewise low in number, with the exception of the 335 Eastern Kingbirds counted.
Slightly north of Kiptopeke off Sandhill Drive, five Buff-breasted Sandpipers found by Paul Anderson showed very well in a harvested potato field off Sandhill Drive. Potato fields are a favorite stopover habitat for these unique arctic-breeding sandpipers, and it seems to be shaping up to be a good season for them in the area.
Tomorrow is the last day of the heat wave before a cold front tomorrow brings temperatures down over the weekend. Cold fronts almost always bring in significant movements of migrants, depending on the wind direction and precipitation in the area. We will be happy for slightly cooler weather for a few days as well.
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/3748/20260902
