Temp in the 50s, but going down to the 40s, mostly cloudy, intermittent light showers, N wind 10-20 mph

The cold front certainly brought some birds to the island and allowed us to see some that we had missed earlier.

The north winds changed the flight path of the masses of shearwaters going by the Seawall, making them visible again. So we were able to watch them for a while and pick out both Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses.

As we were going by the north end of Clam Lagoon, hundreds of Kittiwakes flew in and settled on the water. We had seen this behavior before, down at Sweeper Cove. They do not appear to be feeding, just resting.

Black-legged Kittiwakes, Clam Lagoon, Sept 27, 2015.

Up until today, we could only find 11 Eurasian Wigeon, and they were on Haven Lake. Last night, several dozen arrived. We found 24 on Lake Shirley and another dozen or so on Clam Lagoon. Isaac had told us they start arriving en masse in late September, and so they did…

The numbers we saw today probably equals all of the Eurasian Wigeon we have seen on all of our trips out here, as we only see a few pairs in May and never have stayed this late in September to see the larger numbers.

We kicked up more Pectoral Sandpipers today, 5 along the road going out to Lake Andrew and a couple in Contractor’s Camp Marsh. I plan to walk the marsh and/or Clam Lagoon tomorrow to see what else dropped in.

There are still a couple of flocks of Ruddy Turnstones hanging around.

The bad news is that one of the runways (north/south) has been declared unfit and is not going to be repaired. This leaves just the NE/SW runway for all landings and takeoffs. This may mean more cancelled flights, as certain wind and weather conditions will preclude landing there.

Fred left today, leaving us as the only birders on the island for the next four days.

The triplist is 52.