Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Storm Birds, Storm Birding
That Sandy made landfall north of Cape May spared us a great deal of flood damage (you DON'T want to be northeast of the eye, just ask NYC), but so far it seems it spared us spectacular birds.. . .
Well, except for the tropicbird, above, and a number of Band-rumped Storm-petrels reported around the state, and nice numbers of Parasitic and Pomarine Jaegers.
Living as I do north of Cape Island, I was one of a number of birders who tried to get onto the island and failed. I'm a lousy liar - nope, no home or business in Cape May, just trying to go birdwatching. Got some nice police-officer smirks for that one. Oh well, there were birds along the bay, too, including both jaegers, plenty of gannets, all three scoters, and others at Miami Beach in the Villas.
With the intense rainfall, 10 or more inches on the bayshore, Fishing Creek is dumping water into the bay like crazy - and fish, baitfish that is, and the terns were concentrated at the outflow.
Friday, October 26, 2012
A Day in Rocky
God, I love this place. Rocky Mountain National Park, that is. Which is why the stupid Hurricane Sandy just frosts me, forcing an early return to the east when I was supposed to have a couple days recharging and photographing in mountain paradise. Much as I miss my dear ones, a snowy Rocky is hard to leave.
But I had today. The dozen photos in this post were taken today, after about 3 inches of snow fell in the park last night and the temps dipped into the teens. That's the same weather now sweeping eastward that the over-dramatic forecasters fantasize about colliding with the hurricane and dumping 5 feet of snow on. . . someplace. Looks like Cape May will get wind, rain, and especially coastal flooding. My house is 9 feet above sea level and a half mile inland. And I've got two kayaks and a canoe and a dog that swims real well. . .
Right. Rocky. Today. Wonderful.
"Fri-D" - of Races and Falling Down Mountains
At least I got a new pair of boots out of it.
Who would have thought an American Three-toed Woodpecker, a male for heaven's sake, would alight on a pine downhill of me, so as to be almost eye level. Let me explain: this bird is a pearl of great price almost anywhere it is found, often shifting old reliable locations to find new, freshly dead trees each year. I'd taken pains to pump the park naturalists for info on current locations for the bird, and here one dropped in front of me utterly unexpected while I hiked on a snowy afternoon above Little Horseshoe Park in Rocky Mountain National Park. All I needed to do was creep upslope of the trail a step or two to find an opening between branches, and a full-frame photo was mine. A snowy, slippery slope. I creeped, got the shot off, and promptly fell on my back, centering a rock with my spine in the process. Was it worth it? Hek, yeah, and on the way back to the hotel I picked up a primo pair of Lowa hiking boots (at a premium price, of course), dropping the sole-worn Timberlands in a dumpster on the way out.
Right. Fri-D. So one of the cool things about the Sibley guide, if you read the front matter, is the way he separates races geographically, and by extension, the way that explains variation because of isolation by geography. Thus, American Three-toed Woodpeckers (and Hairy Woodpeckers and White-breasted Nuthatches and others) of the mountain west look slightly different than races found elsewhere. See the pics and captions for details.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Thoughtful Thursday - Black-billed Magpie
"If you miss this bird, you may want to take up another avocation."
-Harold R. Holt in A Birder's Guide to Colorado
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Why Never to Say, "Just a Yellow-rump"
When confronted with a Yellow-rumped Warbler, my first response has long become, "I've never seen THIS Yellow-rumped Wabler before." An entire book could be written about the Yellow-rumped Warbler, not the species, but the one right there dashing past in morning flight with its thousands of brethren. Where did it hatch - Quebec? Maine? Alaska, even? Where will it winter, here in NJ or coastal North Carolina or. . . ? How many swipes from Sharp-shinned Hawks will it need to evade to get there?
No, don't take Yellow-rumpeds for granted. This is a special bird.
My daughter asked me how many were in the flight in Cape May this morning. I pondered a moment and said, 50,000. Shortly after the text message came through that Cameron had counted 20,000 in the first hour alone. Fantastic! Palm Warblers and a few Blackpolls and other species spiced the flight, but it was overwhelmingly dominated by this ubiquitous bird.
Hundreds of Pine Siskins and dozens of Purple Finches called overhead in Cape May ths morning, and a decent raptor flight was buildling.
In case anyone's wondering why I tweeted that today would be a big flight: Northwest winds hadn't started Friday night, which precluded a decent flight then. But the air cooled and northwest winds from the high pressure system building over the region blew all day Saturday and all night Saturday night. This is the weather pattern that most reliably puts birds in Cape May in the fall: an overnight of west-northwest winds after a period without them. Now, to get out there and find that Evening Grosbeak!
Friday, October 19, 2012
"Fri-D" - Cormorants
Plumage and bill/chin color differences are distinctive between the two eastern cormorants if you can see them well enough, which is often a big if. Cormorants tend to appear as distant lines of birds, or perched way out on buoys or jetties.
On plumage, young Greats have white bellies and brown necks, while that pattern tends to be reversed on Double-crested, with the belly being dark and the upper breast and neck pale - but see the juvenile Double-crested pictured below for a measurre of "caution advised." Greats always show a white chin, which of course stands out on the breeding adult, and the yellow/orange on the bare parts is confined to the chin and does not extend out to the bill as it does on Double-crested.
When they're together, Great is obviously bigger. It weighs almost twice as much, and while it averages only 3 inches longer in total length, it is proportionately longer winged (63 inches to 52 inches), and the wings on Great are broader, too. They both fly with a crook in the neck, but Great has a thicker neck and heavier head.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Thoughtful Thursday: Shadow and Light
"What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is
your candle. Your boundaries are your quest.
I could explain this, but it will break the
glass cover on your heart, and there's no
fixing that.
You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.
When from that tree feathers and wings sprout on you,
be quieter than a dove. Don't even open your mouth for
even a coo."
- Rumi (1207 - 1273)
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Stalking the Wild Kinglet
These fine-billed birds feed on the tiniest of insects, whether miniscule flies drawn to the "magic" Siberian Elms in Cape May Point, or equally small insects in the grass next to Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary, where this kinglet charged me. Or, even better, simply ignored me lying prone in the grass watching its foraging progress.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Big Sit Dawn
When in the blue dawn of October friends gather, a crescent moon rises above the sun, sparrows murmur their good mornings, and trees swallows send their smoke signals, it is good to be alive. And a birder.
By 10:00 a.m., 120 species were recorded, along with many jokes and many cups of coffee. By day's end, 133 species. A fine day indeed.
Friday, October 12, 2012
"Fri-D" - Fall Female Warblers
The confusing fall warblers are often females, especially first fall females. Female warblers in general usually look like muted versions of spring males, and in fall, they look especially muted, and if they're first years, even more so. For example, first fall Cape May Warbler females often show no yellow at all, so the one above is a nice one!
A helpful fact is that if you know the male patterns, you can look for the same patterns on females, only expect them to be subtle. The drabbest female Cape Mays may not have yellow, but they at least have the pale "fish hook" that goes under the cheek and around the back of the neck, a muted version of the strong yellow seen on adult males.
The neckband on Magnolia Warbler, the gray head and eyering on Nashville, the dark irregularly-shaped cheek on Blackburnian, the yellow face on Black-throated Green. . . all examples of features present on adult males that show, however subtly, on fall females.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Thoughtful Thursday: Cyrano de Bergerac
"Does it seem strange: a hundred cutthroats against one poor poet? It is not strange. It is a minimal defense, mademoiselle--(Drawing his sword; quietly.)--when that poet is a friend of Cyrano de Bergerac."
- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 1
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
A Feeling of November, and Finding Birds that Cooperate
With temperatures staying in the 50's, and flocks of Pine Siskins and occasional Purple Finches in the air, it felt later in fall than it is today. A couple other late season migrants added to that feeling, those being my first Winter Wren and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers of the Cape May fall, both at the Beanery.
After joining a gathering of friends at Coral Avenue to watch Tree Swallows swirling over the dunes and Parasitic Jaegers harass the Forster's Terns and Laughing Gulls in the rips, a passing Eastern Meadowlark reminded me for some reason that I hadn't been to the Beanery in a while - probably because the Beanery is a good place to see meadowlarks.
It's also a good place to just creep about slowly, getting close to birds and watching them do what they do with generally less interference from other birders, a consideration on a holiday weekend in Cape May. I love birding with other people, but it has it limits, especially when you're trying to get pictures. Birders often complain about photographers scaring birds, and with good reason sometimes, but birders can be good at scaring birds, too.
A few warblers lingered at the Beanery, and I was in the right place at the right time for a distant look at the Swainson's Hawk that started at the hawkwatch and in a few minutes found its way up past Cameron at the Higbee dike and apparently "left the building," or at least the island, Cape Island that is. A persistently calling Gray-cheeked Thrush even let me have a brief look at it, though not a photo. Without trying particularly to run up a list I found 68 species in an hour and a half, pretty fun and a sign of a good day of migration. Even if it felt like November.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Siskin Morning and Fields Solid with Sparrows
The main story of the day: Cameron Rutt counted 1129 Siskins at Morning Flight in Cape May, NJ today!
I really didn't know what to do this morning in the drizzle after an obvious overnight flight as shown on the radar. So, start with Higbee and go to Cape May Point after about an hour. That's always a solid plan.
Besides frequent flyover siskins and an occasional Purple Finch, the fields were solid with sparrows, solid enough that it took the whole hour to make my way up the east side of the first field and back down the west side of the tower field. Swamp and Song Sparrows were the most common, with plenty of White-throateds, a few Savannahs, and, interestingly, a significant smattering of House Wrens. Obviously a slug of this species joined the night flight last night.
At the state park in the drizzle a few falcons of all three species were in the air, some picking on Red Bats that were coming in off the water. And a few warblers gleaned insects near the hawkwatch pavilion, where a number of us gathered to stay out of the rain. But the siskins were the real story of the morning, enough so that I stopped at the hardware store on the way home for more thistle seed.
I really think tomorrow will be a fine day, though whether my tweeted Peregrine forecast comes true remains to be seen. A lot of birds will be around, we can be sure of that.
Friday, October 5, 2012
"Fri-D" - Caspian and Royal Terns
If you wander about Stone Harbor Point, NJ, or other coastal points, this time of year, you'll find both of our large terns, Caspian and Royal. I happened to be standing on the free bridge north of Nummy Island, south of Stone Harbor, NJ last night (where I stand more than a habitat use analysis would statisically predict) and had mainly Caspians flying around, but some Royals, too. The bird above, a Caspian, identified itself with its sheet-ripping, scraping call, but its forehead seemed very white. Caspians are supposed to show at least dark stippling on the forehead year round, while Royals go most of the year with clean white foreheads, save when they are high-breeding plumage in early summer and have dark caps.
This is a good time to point out that just because you don't see a bird's field mark, it doesn't mean it isn't there. Like, this Caspian had dark stippling on the forehead (photo zoomed below) but you couldn't see it at a distance.
Compare the Royal Tern close-up below for the forehead pattern difference, and while you're at it, compare the bill color and size. The bill is slimmer than Caspian's - maybe hard to see with a fish in the way.
There are plenty of differences between Caspian and Royal Terns, from the calls (Caspians rasping and ripping to Royal's liquid ripppling) to the overall jizz of the birds, which is dramatically different. In a nutshell, Royal's are slim, thin and long-winged, Caspians are bulky broader-winged. Royals tend to inhabit beach and offshore, while Caspians are more likely to be seen over beach or inland, though there is plenty of overlap.
