Finding What You're Not Looking For

[Northern Mockingbird takes a drink from a car roof, Cape May, NJ on Sunday. Click to enlarge.]

I not found (I know, it's bad grammar) the Greater White-fronted Goose, Black-capped Chickadee (second Cape May record), and plenty of other birds in Cape May this morning, but still managed some interesting observations, my favorite of which was the pictured mockingbird.  You could spend a lot of time staking out rain- or dew-covered car roofs and not see a bird drinking from them, so I counted myself lucky to be there, camera at the ready, when this mockingbird decided to do just that.  It's called taking things as they come to you, which is evolving into my New Year's resolution, bird wise: just get out there and enjoy what unfolds. 

Like bumping into friends at Cape May Point State Park, and finding a Blue-winged Teal there, a lingerer indeed when many of its kind are in Central and South America. That's a long way for a duck to fly, as my companions this morning pointed out, and yet wintering numbers of Blue-winged Teal in the U.S. are low except for the Gulf Coast and Florida.