Strong northwest winds arrived with the passing cold front and brought some interesting sightings to the Eastern Shore today. At Sunset Beach, totals of 28 species and 2999 individuals were counted.
More passerines were engaging in northbound morning flight behavior today, likely after experiencing wind drift overnight on the northwesterlies. Of the day’s 140 American Goldfinches, 133 were northbound over the campground, a stark contrast to the last few days’ strong southbound flights. A late Blackpoll Warbler was heard working its way north early morning. The Chesapeake Bay was active with another good flight of 109 Northern Gannets, many of which were rising high in kettles before streaming out to the south. A light adult Parasitic Jaeger made a fairly close pass off the beach, the third counted this month. Common Loons were streaming over all parts of the sky totaling 42, the high count for the season so far.
At the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch, a few raptors were moving earlier on in the day totaling 36 including the season’s fourth Golden Eagle. A nice rarity surprise came in the form of a northbound Ash-throated Flycatcher that buzzed the platform and continued north across the hawkwatch clearing. Ash-throated Flycatchers are rare but regular vagrants to the Eastern Shore, especially following November fronts such as this one. American Robins had a strong flight today at the hawkwatch with 10644 southbound during the main count, and another 10176 lifting off at dusk.
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Strong northwesterlies continue tomorrow, which should hopefully make for another interesting day for the penultimate day of the 2026 Sunset Beach Morning Flight Count season!
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/3748/20261113
