Hi all, 

Hope Norm will forgive this out-of-area post but thought Ospreyers would like to read about this. A NY birder visiting Key West had an amazing morning! 

"It was truly an impressive array of migrants. We arrived at Fort Zach [Key West] at 10:30 am and stayed until 12 noon when the rain picked up again (and remains strong). In total, we estimated around 30K-50K migrants (warblers, almost entirely) had been dumped into the park. Carl estimated 75,000. It's very difficult to say. This was based on counting birds per minute flitting past. Black-throated Blues were the most abundant (~20K estimated). At one point I had around 100 sitting on a dirt path in front of me, and they were constantly moving through, along with redstarts (~5000), ovenbirds (~3000), Black-and-whites (~3000), yellowthroats (~2000), catbirds (~2000), and amazingly (to me), yellow-billed cuckoos (easily 500, maybe over 1000). Grassy areas had western palms (~3000). Other warblers were around in smaller numbers: Cape May (10 seen), B-t-green (1), Parula (5), Hooded (1), Worm-eating (2), Nor Waterthrush (3), Blackpoll (80), and, aforementioned, 1 Swainson's. No orioles or tanagers or grosbeaks that we saw, and only a few indigo buntings (down from several days ago). Carl also alerted us to two Chuck-wills-widows that were competing with an osprey, tricolored herons and about 50 cuckoos for roosting space in a tiny grove of trees by the bathhouse. It was truly impressive. 
Morgan Tingley , New York, NY " 

Gail Mackiernan 
Colesville, MD 



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