Luck

 [Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Cape May Point, NJ, April 6, 2014.  Originally found by Rob and Lisa Fanning a couple weeks ago, this was a rare NJ lifer for me.]

"Well, I finally got the damn sparrow," I told Mike Crewe and Glen Davis, meaning no disrespect to the Eurasian Tree Sparrow that seems to have found its way to Cape May Point under its own power and was discovered there a couple weeks ago by Rob and Lisa Fanning.  Everyone's been seeing it, everyone but me it seems like, but only because I hadn't taken the time to look.  Today I did look, and got lucky.  Very lucky, because I have no patience when it comes to staked out feeder birds, and lo and behold I walked up and the bird was at the feeder for me to see and photograph. Tick. It seems to me this bird will likely be accepted as a "natural" vagrant from the St. Louis population by the NJRBC; see Mike Crewe's excellent discussion of the bird here.

The Pine Warbler photo below was also a bit of luck, in that I set up to photograph it as it fed on a Cape May Point lawn, and lo and behold once again, the bird fed its way toward me, eventually giving me full-frame photo ops.  I'll take it.

[Pine Warbler, Cape May Point, NJ this morning.]