Tag Archives: migration

Fall Plans

Leave a reply

Seriously, it’s already the end of August?  Where the heck did the summer go?  It feels like shorebird season just started, and now here I am checking the radar nightly as fall songbird migration heats up.  Goldfinches are eating seed heads in the perennial gardens, hummingbirds are molting and tanking up (many males have already departed), and biting insects are at a minimum.  As much as I love late August – and autumn is my favorite season – it’s always a little bittersweet to let summer slip away.

In most years, by the end of August I have combed through flocks of roosting peeps at Biddeford Pool or strained to see distant mudflats at Pine Point at least a dozen times.  I can’t believe Sunday was actually my first visit to Biddeford Pool on a high tide all summer!  This week isn’t helping either, with a visit to Massachusetts these past two days and some New Hampshire birding with a friend tomorrow.  In other words, I have been busy – wicked busy even!  This is by no means a complaint, however, just a statement – and an excuse as to why I never did find a Red-necked Stint for Maine this summer.

What is normally a “slower” season for me was anything but, and now, with September right around the corner, I am about to get even busier!  I have a trip to the Upper Midwest in October to speak at the Iowa Ornithologists Union Fall Meeting and the UrbanEcologyCenter in Milwaukee with some birding and visiting with friends in between.  I’ll be talking to New Hampshire Audubon in October as well, and I will be helping out Leica Sports Optics at the Cape Cod Birding Festival next month.

In between, I hope to spend as much time as possible at SandyPoint.  Keep an eye on the store’s Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/freeportwildbird) for my Morning Flight counts.  I’ll post the occasional significant flight report and corresponding radar analysis here, but most counts will just get posted directly to the FB page (as a “public” business page, it functions as a regular website; no need to “be on” FB to view).

SandyPoint at sunrise is probably my favorite place to be in the fall, but MonheganIsland is a very close second.  Actually, it’s probably a tie.  I wish I could be at both almost every morning all season long!  And speaking of Monhegan, I still have spaces on my “MonhegZEN Birding Fall Migration Weekend” tour, September 27through 30th.  It’s a “per diem” tour, so you can join me for anywhere between one and four days of birding at this amazing place.

In preparation of what is likely to be a whirlwind fall for me, I have updated our website with all of my events, programs, and tours on a newly-expanded “Tours, Events, Workshops, and Programs” page at http://www.freeportwildbirdsupply.com.  There you’ll find more information about the MonhegZEN Birding Weekend tour, and all of my programs for the coming months.  We’ve also started to finalize plans for an exciting 2014, including everything from our “Woodcocks Gone Wild” evening walk to a two-week tour to the Russian Far East.  More Monhegan, our now-annual trip with the Schooner Lewis R. French, and much, much more is now posted, with details rapidly being filled in.

So whether it’s in Iowa, the parking lot at SandyPoint, or on MonheganIsland, I hope to see you this fall.  And if you happen to have a cup of bird-friendly coffee handy, I will probably need it!

A Record-setting First Day of the Season at Sandy Point

Leave a reply

I definitely had second thoughts when the alarm went off at 4:45 this morning.  I hate pre-5am alarms.  But August flights at Sandy Point Beach, Cousin’s Island, Yarmouth can be so much fun.  I just wish dawn didn’t come so darn early right now.

But as of 9:30 last night, the NEXRAD radar was absolutely on fire!  Light northwest winds and clear skies really put birds on the move.  Here are the 10pm, 1am, and 4 am radar and velocity images for example.  For a detailed explanation of how to read and interpret these images, see Chapter 5 of my book, How to be a Better Birder.
10pm radar,8-23-13

10pm velocity, 8-23-13

4am velocity, 8-24-13

4am radar,8-24-13

1am velocity, 8-24-13

1am radar,8-24-13

This was really an exceptional flight for this early in the season. But back to that alarm clock…I woke up, and saw that the winds had become northerly overnight.  The lack of a westerly component usually diminishes the Morning Flight here.  However, with that high of a density on the radar, even as late as 4:00am, I figured I would give it a go, despite serious contemplation of rolling over and waiting until the next cold front (and waiting for a few more minutes of darkness).  Let’s just say I was glad I motivated.  Come sunrise, a little northwesterly to westerly breeze at the surface developed, and encouraged more birds to cross at the point.  The winds were very light, so a lot of birds were high; the trees and shrubbery were fairly quiet this morning.  Therefore, with so many high birds, and some big groups just too far to the north of the bridge, my “unidentified” tally was higher than I would have liked.

Regardless, it was still great.  In fact, it was record-setting.  A new August high count, and a new high count for 6 species.  Plus a Patch Bird!  Here’s the morning’s scorecard (*= new record high count):

408 American Redstarts*
379 Unidentified
67 Yellow Warblers
59 Northern Parulas
59 Magnolia Warblers*
50 Cedar Waxwings
33 Black-and-white Warblers*
28 Black-throated Green Warblers
25 Yellow-rumped Warblers (all in active molt)
8 Bay-breasted Warblers*
8 Blackburnian Warblers*
7 “Traill’s” Flycatchers*
7 Canada Warblers*
6 Chestnut-sided Warblers
5 Unidentified empids
4 American Robins
3 Chipping Sparrows
3 Red-winged Blackbirds
2 Olive-sided Flycatchers
2 Least Flycatchers
2 Black-throat Blue Warblers
2 Bobolinks
2 American Goldfinches
2 Purple Finches
1 SOLITARY SANDPIPER (my 174th species here!)
1 Red-eyed Vireo
1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird
1 Pine Warbler
1 Wilson’s Warbler
1 Dark-eyed Junco (record early)
1 DICKCISSEL (first of fall; my 3rd August record here)

Total= 1177* (new August record)