Stéphane’s Posting for Aug. 30, 2011

Migrants!

The day of August 30 started calm and quiet: no wind but also very few birds. Finally, in mid-morning, action pick up and we ended the day with the most birds captured for the season so far: 45 birds of 17 species, including 14 of warblers! There were birds from the boreal forest, like Wilson’s, Palm, Blackpoll, and Tennessee Warblers… There was also a lot of Red-eyed Vireos. In the morning, we heard one of my favorite sound in nature, the call of the Whip-poor-will: they always sing in late August-early September at Cabot Head.

The previous evening, 5 Common Nighthawks gave us a free show of their aerial mastery, hawking insects right overhead at the station in the bright light of a sun over the horizon. It nice to see a little congregation of this bird that has declined so fast in the last few decades…

Stéphane