Free as a Chat

[And this chat you cannot change. . . flight song over a hidden meadow in Belleplain State Forest today. You don't think of Belleplain State Forest (sic) for edge and thicket birds, but hidden away meadows hold chats, Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, all those early successional goodies. Sometimes, I think, more easily found and seen than places like Higbee Beach or the Beanery.]

While much of the NJ birding world was focused on the World Series of Birding today (wonder how my pals on the Rutgers Scarlet Night-herons and the Monarchists faired), I was free as a sky-larking chat this peak weekend in May to wander around Belleplain yet another day, being a naturalist, not a ticker-birder. Which is pretty cool, being able to hang on, for example, to the Lousiana Waterthrush who steadily sang in an atypical location for the second week in a row (NOT Sunset Bridge) and makes me wonder if he's an unpaired male. Must be, I figure. Though The Birder's Handbook is silent on the number of broods LOWA raises per year, I have to believe they only get one off, since they leave so early in summer, thus if this bird is still singing for a mate, it isn't raising any young this year.

Understand, by the way, that I don't fault the WSB folks - how could I, having competed every year 1990-2010? Only a busted knee and a new job kept me out of it this year. I ran into my friend Jim Wilson near Sunset Bridge, who for yet another year is mentoring a youth team in the WSB. Something I admire greatly - and intend to do myself again, maybe even next year, though a no-carbon-footprint team at Forsythe NWR merits consideration, too. I think my best WSB ever was the year with the "kids" - Kaitlyn, Sam, Kyle and Joey on a very fun whole state run about 10 years ago.

Jim's kids missed the Kentucky Warbler at Sunset Bridge - I wanted to shout after them, since it began singing as they pulled away, but that's against the rules. A Prothonotary Warbler sang there, also. Migrants were scarce today -  a single each of Blackpoll Warbler and Rose-breasted Grosbeak  were all I could muster. A full list from Belleplain is at the end of this post - week 7 of my explorations there this spring.

It was too cool and cloudy for most cold-blooded things - I went butterfly-less - , but I did hear my first Pine Barrens Treefrogs of spring, honking in a wetland off Cedar Bridge Road. It was also pretty dark for bird photos, between the clouds and the leaves, but plants are easier. . .

 [Mountain Laurel will begin blooming in south Jersey next week.]

 [Golden Club in a hidden Belleplain stream.]

[Same shot, different week (see posts below): Dogwoods wane, leaves fill in the gaps.]

Though I recorded 50-some birds in Bellplain today, I don't think I eyeballed more than 20 species thanks to a whole lot of leaves. A bird heard is as good as bird seen for me anymore, especially the good singers - like Louisiana Waterthrush.

This afternoon post-Belleplain, a careful low tide count at Norbury's Landing yielded only 42 Red Knots, but some serious numbers of other shorebirds: 15 Black-bellied Plover, 23 Semipalmated Plover, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 107 Ruddy Turnstone, 3400 Sanderling, 1700 Semipalmated Sandpiper, 5 Dunlin, 25 Short-billed Dowitcher, and competing with them all,  9900 Laughing Gulls.

Here's the Belleplain list from today:

Location: Belleplain State Forest
Observation date: 5/14/11
Notes: 645-1015a, 12 miles, cloudy, 50's-low 60's. fairly quiet. Pine Barrens Treefrogs calling off Cedar Bridge Road.
Number of species: 51

Canada Goose 2
American Black Duck 2
Wild Turkey 3
Mourning Dove 3
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 2
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 4
Hairy Woodpecker 2
Eastern Wood-Pewee 10
Acadian Flycatcher 8
Eastern Phoebe 1
Great Crested Flycatcher 10
Eastern Kingbird 1
White-eyed Vireo 8
Red-eyed Vireo 25
American Crow 1
Carolina Chickadee 6
Tufted Titmouse 15
Carolina Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 20
Wood Thrush 25
American Robin 5
Gray Catbird 5
Brown Thrasher 4
Blue-winged Warbler 2
Northern Parula 1
Yellow-throated Warbler 12
Pine Warbler 20
Prairie Warbler 2
Blackpoll Warbler 1
Black-and-white Warbler 15
Prothonotary Warbler 1
Worm-eating Warbler 15
Ovenbird 65
Louisiana Waterthrush 1
Kentucky Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Hooded Warbler 8
Yellow-breasted Chat 2
Eastern Towhee 8
Chipping Sparrow 6
Summer Tanager 4
Scarlet Tanager 2
Northern Cardinal 4
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1
Blue Grosbeak 1
Indigo Bunting 2
Common Grackle 2
Brown-headed Cowbird 15
American Goldfinch 2
House Sparrow 2

Wordless Wednesday

IS April the New May?

[Yellow-throated Vireo, Belleplain State Forest May 7, 2011.]

Answer: No. Not yet, anyway. May is still the peak of spring migration for most landbird species (we're talking about the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states here). May is still when we get into the heart of the breeding season. May is still when full leaf-out occurs.

And yet. . . birders like to look at arrival dates, and I've been looking especially hard this year. Considering just April (May's hardly begun), 41 of 62 Cape May County arriving species appeared solidly within normal dates. But 6 were on the early side, and 15 (!) appeared earlier than the earliest arrival date listed in Sibley's 1997 Birds of Cape May. 

Ovenbird makes for a good example. Sibley's earliest reported arrival was April 14, so the handful that showed up in various Cape May locations on April 10 were EARLY. 

Now let's rewind to Witmer Stone's time, the 1930's and previous.  Stone's listed arrival dates for Ovenbird range from April 24 to May 2, a full two weeks later than this year.

Is there a pattern? Well, one year does not a pattern make, and we have sampling problems here, one of which is coverage. Nowadays I feel pretty sure that arriving birds in Cape May get seen, somewhere, by someone, within a day or two of their arrival. Coverage was fairly good during the time Sibley worked in Cape May, though not as dense as now. And how much did Witmer Stone and colleagues even bird in April? And how many active birders at all were there then? Could an Ovenbird could show up and go undetected for days in the 1930's?

Eventually I'm going to put all this arrival business in a table and analyze it, and while I'm on that subject I dearly wish every birder eBirded. Even in 2011, even in Cape May, birds are getting reported but when you look at arrival dates in eBird, some of these earliest arrivals are not showing up.

Enough. Let's talk about what Belleplain was like last Saturday, May 7 2011. Exactly what it should be - awesome.

[Two of the three Rose-breasted Grosbeaks that were in this one oak along Pine Swamp Road on Saturday, a nice sighting, especially because they don't breed in southern NJ and we have to catch them when they come through.]

Besides the pictured grosbeaks, we had several other definite migrants, including a Gray-cheeked Thrush walking in Tom Field Road, and two Blackburnian Warblers singing along Sunset Road. The Louisiana Waterthrushes at Sunset Bridge were feeding young, making frequent passes from downstream to upstream with food in their bills - thus the nest is somewhere upstream of the bridge. The Kentucky Warblers at the bridge should have stolen the show, and did for some patient birders, but my experience with them was soiled by another birder who began to play a recording at them. I wanted to throw his iPod into the creek, but merely told him in no uncertain terms that playing songs at that location was utterly unacceptable. He stopped. . .while I was there, anyway. More on that to follow - be prepared, I'm going to piss some people off.

FOY's for me this weekend were Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Eastern Wood-pewee, Yellow-throated Vireo, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Blackburnian and Kentucky Warblers,  and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

More pics from last Saturday are below  - check out the progress of leaf-out - and here's the list, Belleplain weekend # 6, with birds of interest bolded:

Location: Belleplain State Forest
Observation date: 5/7/11
Notes: 6:45-10;15 am, 50's-60's, mostly clear, 12 miles.
Number of species: 58

Wild Turkey 1
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 2
Laughing Gull 50
Mourning Dove 5
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 5
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 3
Acadian Flycatcher 5
Great Crested Flycatcher 10
Eastern Kingbird 2
White-eyed Vireo 6
Yellow-throated Vireo 2
Red-eyed Vireo 25
Blue Jay 3
Barn Swallow 1
Carolina Chickadee 7
Tufted Titmouse 20
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 25
Gray-cheeked Thrush 1
Wood Thrush 25
American Robin 10
Gray Catbird 8
European Starling 2
Blue-winged Warbler 1
Northern Parula 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Blackburnian Warbler 2
Yellow-throated Warbler 10
Pine Warbler 20
Prairie Warbler 1
Black-and-white Warbler 15
American Redstart 1
Prothonotary Warbler 1
Worm-eating Warbler 15
Ovenbird 80
Louisiana Waterthrush 3
Kentucky Warbler 2
Common Yellowthroat 1
Hooded Warbler 10
Yellow-breasted Chat 1
Eastern Towhee 5
Chipping Sparrow 10
White-throated Sparrow 1
Summer Tanager 3
Scarlet Tanager 10
Northern Cardinal 5
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 3
Blue Grosbeak 1
Brown-headed Cowbird 15
Baltimore Oriole 1
American Goldfinch 3
House Sparrow 2

[Think in turtle time when looking at changes in migration timing - Box Turtles can live 100 years. There will always be outliers when it comes to bird arrivals, but if they thrive and reproduce, a shift in species migration can occur. Wonder if this female Box Turtle ( a male would have red eyes) thought, "Gee, Ovenbirds were early this year."]

[Compare this Cinnamon Fern with the fiddleheads shown on "Wordless Wednesday" below.]

[A bit more green, a bit deeper, and a bit less red - same shot as shown below, one week later.]

Wordless Wednesday

[Belleplain State Forest, NJ May 2011]

Spring Comes to Belleplain

Quick post on Week 5 in Belleplain. . . and a question to ponder: Is April the new May?

 [Summer Tanager was in in Belleplain Sunday, or at least this one was, the lone SUTA I saw or heard. Frank's Road, singing away. A Scarlet Tanager sang nearby as well.]

[Spicebush Swallowtail and Flowering Dogwood. Gotta fly, more thoughts and photos later this week.]

Location: Belleplain State Forest
Observation date: 5/1/11
Notes: 7:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. 13.5 miles. mostly clear, temp 46 to 60 degrees, light wind. Gray Treefrog calling (2), roadkill green snake. Spicebush Swallowtail, Horace's Duskywing.
Number of species: 58

Canada Goose 4
Wild Turkey 1
Black Vulture 4
Turkey Vulture 2
Broad-winged Hawk 1 calling repeatedly and circling cedar bridge road
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Killdeer 2
Laughing Gull 50
Herring Gull 10
Mourning Dove 3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 2 low spot cedar bridge
Red-bellied Woodpecker 3
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1 drumming Tom Field Road
Northern Flicker 2
Acadian Flycatcher 6Eastern Phoebe 2
Great Crested Flycatcher 15
Eastern Kingbird 1
White-eyed Vireo 10
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 20
Blue Jay 2
Fish Crow 1
Carolina Chickadee 10
Tufted Titmouse 25
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 35
Wood Thrush 29 clicked, but singing mostly shut down after 8:00 a.m.
American Robin 6
Gray Catbird 6
Brown Thrasher 2
Blue-winged Warbler 1
Northern Parula 1Yellow Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 10
Black-throated Green Warbler 2Yellow-throated Warbler 12
Pine Warbler 30
Prairie Warbler 5
Black-and-white Warbler 24 clicked
American Redstart 2 Sunset Bridge
Prothonotary Warbler 1 Sunset Bridge
Worm-eating Warbler 22 clicked
Ovenbird 93 clicked
Northern Waterthrush 1
Louisiana Waterthrush 3 New birds?
Common Yellowthroat 2
Hooded Warbler 6Eastern Towhee 10
Chipping Sparrow 10
Summer Tanager 1 Frank's Road
Scarlet Tanager 6Northern Cardinal 5
Common Grackle 5
Brown-headed Cowbird 20
Orchard Oriole 1
American Goldfinch 10