Birding Cape May Point - Saturday, January 28th, 2017

We had a Yellow-rumped Warbler phenomenon on this morning's walk. Streams of yellow-rumps were flying through, moving from one tree to the next in front of us. There were so many, we had a discussion of how to get a reliable count for eBird entry. The Cornell eBird Team does provide guidance on this (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/counting-101) and it gets easier with practice; we came up with 120 yellow-rumps with subtle plumage differences indicating their age and sex. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet was cooperatively chipping and feeding and a Purple Finch posed briefly atop a leafless tree. Leaders: Kathy Horn, Roger Horn, Karl Lukens, and Kyle Chelius.
41 species (+1 other taxa)

Canada Goose  140
Mute Swan  4
Tundra Swan  8
Gadwall  12
American Wigeon  8
American Black Duck  4
Mallard (Northern)  16
American Black Duck x Mallard (hybrid)  1
Northern Shoveler  4
Northern Pintail  2
Canvasback  1
Ring-necked Duck  9
Bufflehead  8
Hooded Merganser  13
Red-breasted Merganser  1
Red-throated Loon  1
Great Blue Heron (Blue form)  2
Turkey Vulture  2
Northern Harrier (American)  1
Bald Eagle  1
Ring-billed Gull  6
Herring Gull (American)  5
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)  14
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Downy Woodpecker (Eastern)  2
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)  4
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  2
Tree Swallow  17     Actual count of birds that have been lingering in the area
Carolina Chickadee  2
Carolina Wren (Northern)  4
Ruby-crowned Kinglet  2
American Robin  25
Northern Mockingbird  1
European Starling  12
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)  120
White-throated Sparrow  8
Song Sparrow  1
Eastern Towhee  1
Northern Cardinal  1
Purple Finch (Eastern)  1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)