For the second time this season, a mass migration event overwhelmed the counters at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory this morning, with 17,548 non-raptors counted from our two count sites at the apt near the mouth of the Lester River, and the Hawk Ridge main overlook. A massive river of birds flowed through the sky for three hours beginning at sunrise, occurring in a broad front from along the Lake Superior shore to up and over Hawk Ridge over a mile away. Although the majority of this flight was warblers (11,674 counted), and most of the warblers were Yellow-rumps, many other species were moving as well. Flocks of American Pipits, American Goldfinches, and other species mixed into the loose waves of warblers, and the first large flight of American Robins of the season built the numbers even further.
After an entire week of south and east winds, passage of a cold front late yesterday afternoon finally brought a shift in wind direction to the west, and this is no doubt what triggered this awesome movement of birds. Radar last night indicated a large lift-off of birds, and I was able to see hundreds of birds moving over the city lights around midnight, so this flight was not unexpected, but in terms of overall numbers of birds this was one of the larger flights I have seen at Hawk Ridge/Lester River, and it is the largest warbler flight I have seen in seven years of counting. But it is not the largest flight of warblers ever, since three higher counts were tabulated in 1987-1988 just up shore at the Lakewood pumping station, including an amazing 29,335 warblers on 1 October 1988 (Eckert et al.). As I have noted elsewhere, comparison of recent counts at Hawk Ridge/Lester River (2009-2012) to historical counts at Lakewood (1987-1990) indicate the overall number of warblers are down by about 65%. We post detailed daily updates of all the raptors and non-raptors counted at Hawk Ridge/Lester River on the HMANA website, www.hawkcount.org, which can most easily be linked through the Hawk Ridge website www.hawkridge.org. New this year, we also have a Hawk Ridge blog hawkridgeblog.blogspot.com (which also has an easy link from the Hawk Ridge website), where I provide a weekly summary of the raptor and non-raptor counts every Sunday. A (nearly) complete list of today’s non-raptors counted is as follows: 27 Canada Geese, 1 Wood Duck (first of season), 2 Common Loons, 1 American White Pelican, 1 American Golden-Plover, 17 Herring Gulls, 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker, 9 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, 11 Northern Flickers, 1 Least Flycatcher, 1 Red-eyed Vireo, 692 Blue Jays, 13 Horned Larks, 64 Barn Swallows, 5 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 12 Eastern Bluebirds, 1641 American Robins, 276 American Pipits, 1 Gray Catbird, 515 Cedar Waxwings, 1 Tennessee Warbler, 3 Nashville Warblers, 1 Cape May Warbler, 1440 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 105 Palm Warblers, 1 Black-and-white Warbler, 1 Common Yellowthroat, 10,214 unidentified warblers (99% of which were probably Yellow-rumps), 1 Clay-colored Sparrow, 1 White-crowned Sparrow, 2 Lapland Lonspurs, 2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, 4 Bobolinks, 3 Red-winged Blackbirds, 108 Rusty Blackbirds, 13 Common Grackles, 78 Purple Finches, 349 American Goldfinches., and 1895 unidentified passerines. Karl Bardon Duluth, MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
