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Posted by Toe, for Murray Gardler for Carl Goodrich and Morgan Tingley on 10:11:29 05/01/12
Yes, those numbers are correct. The following was posted on FlaBirding about yesterday. This could qualify as a fallout, maybe.
"I was birding this morning at Fort Zachary in Key West and also experienced the fall-out. I don't subscribe to FLBIRDS, so you can re-post this for me. We ran into Carl Gooodrich who was very helpful at locating and helping us find a life Swainson's Warbler amid the thousands of birds.
It was truly an impressive array of migrants. We arrived at Fort Zach 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."
On a different note, I saw a Redsart on the way to work this morning, and maybe a dove.
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