September Birding Report

One reason that I like the autumn bird migration is that it lasts longer than the spring migration. Some birds maintain their breeding plumage well into early September, many do not though, and this is what makes identification this time of year tricky. Additionally, most of the action happens at night.

During the first two weeks of September I saw good numbers of Black-throated Green Warblers and American Redstarts. Also, Red-eyed Vireos and Red-breasted Nuthatches visited our backyard patch on multiple occasions. I also found Ovenbirds hiding in the Pond Cove tangles above the rocky beach. The area surrounding Pond Cove is a honeypot for passerines and a very good place to find migrant birds in the fall. One reason is that many songbirds choose to migrant via inland routes during the spring and take coastal routes during their southbound journeys. This also makes the task of finding and identifying birds easier because there are not as many trees in full foliage.

On September 13 I flushed two Woodcocks. One within the Gulf Crest Trail system and one out by the Spurwink trail. The second of the two Timberdoodles I saw flew up into the dusky sky and I caught its silhouette against the waning crescent moon! Later in the week we had a single male Rose-breasted Grosbeak visit our feeders briefly in the early morning hours.

On September 19 Ruby-throated hummingbirds were still visiting our feeders. For the record we had our last resident Ruby throated leave our feeders on September 22. I also spotted a new yard bird, a Peregrine Falcon (the 109th unique bird I have seen on our property).

On September 28 a Great Blue Heron was spied stocking its next victim along the emergent wetlands of Robinson Woods II. On September 29 my wife called my attention to an albino bird on our property. The bird was identified as an Albino Chipping Sparrow. To my delight a pair of resident bluebirds with their new son dropped in to teach the young bird how to navigate a suet cage.

In the early morning hours of September 30 my mother-in-law Judy Calise spotted a Barred owl along Two Lights Road boarding the backside of Two Lights State Park.

On the last day of September I heard the husky chatter of the Blue-headed Vireo. Blue-headed Vireos prefer mixed woodlands of conifer and deciduous. This particular vireo migrates later in the fall, primarily because it doesn’t have to travel as far south as other vireos in its range. This bird is much easier to ID because it moves among the mid -canopy levels rather deliberately (versus most warblers and other vireo species, who move very fast, flitting among the underbrush and upper canopies in dense woods).

Other notables include: Surf and White-winged Scoters have arrived just offshore, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, two Northern Parula’s and a female Nashville Warbler playing hide-and-go-seek, and one of my most favorite adaptable dwellers of our forestlands ,a single chattering Carolina wren.