This delightful Black-and-white Warbler hung out with me for a spell in “my office” at Sandy Point during the huge flight on the morning of the 21^st.

While Hurricane Lee was a birding dud here in Maine, I did miss two great flights at Sandy Point and three overall fantastic days of migration while we were out of town.  But some good migration over the past four days since our return helped make up for it. Meanwhile, I also posted a blog recounting a little about what I (did not) miss during the passage of Lee.

Hurricane Lee Birding in Maine FOMO – or not!

• While there has not been a hoped-for morning flight of consequence over or through our Durham property, it continues to be much better for fall migration than we even imagined.  Limited effort produced 12 species of warblers on both 9/19 and 9/22 – which included tardy Northern Waterthrush and Canada Warbler.

• Sandy Point Morning Flight, 9/20.

With winds mostly westerly overnight, and very light westerly winds in the morning, the flight was lighter than I expected. It was also high and distant to the south, so I likely missed a lot of birds, and certainly identified less than I would have liked – both typical on such conditions.

6:23-9:15am	55F, mostly clear, W 2.8mph-4.1	Decreasing to WSW 0.6 to 1.9
Unidentified	164	Eastern Phoebe	2
Northern Parula	84	Eastern Bluebird	2
Blackpoll Warbler	56	DICKCISSEL	2
Cedar Waxwing	22	Bay-breasted/Blackpoll	2
Yellow Warbler	19	Osprey	1
American Redstart	12	Black-throated Blue Warbler	1
American Goldfinch	9	Red-breasted Nuthatch	1
Common Loon	5	Wilson’s Warbler	1
Red-eyed Vireo	5	Baltimore Oriole	1
Cape May Warbler	4	American Robin	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	3	Common Yellowthroat	x
Black-and-white Warbler	3
Nashville Warbler	3	TOTAL	405
Black-throated Green Warbler	3
Horned Lark	2

• Sandy Point Morning Flight, 9/21.

Wow!  Although there was an absolutely huge flight overnight on the radar, the calm winds by dawn lulled me into a false sense of security. But as soon as the sun broke the horizon, birds started flowing. At first they were very high and in very large, dense aggregations, rendering identification impossible for me. Later, as the northwesterly wind picked up, many birds were considerably lower and landing in trees. Based on the date, there’s no way American Redstarts were the second most numerous warbler (they’re just easy to identify), and I would be a large proportion of those early, high migrants were strong-flying Blackpolls. But parulas definitely dominated, and at times, a dozen would be in the trees around me. Even as of 10:00am, a trickle of birds continued overhead.

6:26am to 10:26am.	51F, mostly clear, calm.	Increasing to NW 5.5-7.8mph
Unidentifed	1878	Bay-breasted Warbler	2
Northern Parula	947	Palm Warbler	2
Red-eyed Vireo	97* new record	American Goldfinch	2
American Redstart	88	Blue Jay	2
Blackpoll Warbler	74	Prairie Warbler	2
Yellow-rumped Warbler	59	Savannah Sparrow	1
Black-throated Green Warbler	53	DICKCISSEL	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	47	CONNECTICUT WARBLER!	1 (plus one probable)
Yellow Warbler	43	Bobolink	1
Black-and-white Warbler	41	Brown Creeper	1
Cape May Warbler	16	Chestnut-sided Warbler	1
American Robin	12	American Pipit	1
Northern Flicker	11	Ruby-throated Hummingbird	1
Scarlet Tanager	10	Unidentified Empid	1
Magnolia Warbler	9	Mourning Dove	1
Black-throated Blue Warbler	8	Probable Blue-winged Warbler	1
Blue-headed Vireo	7	Rose-breasted Grosbeak	1
Swainson’s Thrush	6* including two high overhead almost an hour after sunrise!	RED-SHOULDERED HAWK	1 Juv. My 196th all-time Patch Bird!
Horned Lark	6	Sharp-shinned Hawk	1
Red-breasted Nuthatch	5	Baltimore Oriole	1
Nashville Warbler	5	House Wren	1
Common Loon	4	Common Yellowthroat	x
Eastern Phoebe	4
Philadelphia Vireo	3
American Kestrel	3	TOTAL	3,467
Rusty Blackbird	2
Golden-crowned Kinglet	2

This cooperative Prairie Warbler was one of 18 species of warblers that passed over and through Sandy Point Beach, Cousin’s Island, Yarmouth, on the morning of the 21^st.

• Hawkwatching over the store, 9/21!  The big migration day continued, with Jeannette tallying 752 Broad-winged Hawks, 4 Bald Eagles, 3 Turkey Vultures, 2 American Kestrels, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, and 1 Cooper’s Hawk in just over 2 hours of observation right out our front door!

TRIPS AND TOURS.

In case you are looking for a last-minute weekend activity, it appears that we still have one space remaining on this weekend’s Monhegan Weekend with Down East Adventures.  For those who need a little more time to plan, I have a very limited number of spaces on my per diem Monhegan Fall Migration tour NEXT weekend 9/29-10/2.