CMBO Morning Flight takes off

Down at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, a birding tradition began its seventh year on Sunday, just after sunrise. At Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area, bird counters stood on the dredge spoil and counted the songbirds traveling north and following a cold front.

From atop the dredge soil, looking south and at the observation platform

With support from Zeiss, Cape May Bird Observatory's Morning Flight Project employs counters and provides Zeiss spotting scopes and binocular to identify the fall warblers and other species. On some mornings -- such as Oct. 16, 1990, and Oct. 18, 1995 -- more than 100,000 birds fly above Higbee.

The project will continue until Oct. 31. Free programs that describe the count will occur at 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday morning through the end of October.