Pre-front Jaeger Movement

[Juvenile Parasitic Jaeger passes Cape May Point this morning.]

Something in the neighborhood of 50 to 100, or maybe more, Parasitic Jaegers passed Cape May Point, NJ this morning, many pausing to make life miserable for the accumulated gulls and terns in The Rips. Michael O'Brien calculated 80-something, I believe, in his watch time at the point. Unprecedented. All were moving right to left, around Cape May Point, which is why we think we were constantly seeing new birds, not repeats. Where'd they come from, meaning what migration path brought them there? Overland from the Great Lakes region, perhaps? We just don't know, but it was a sight to see.

As I write (4:50 p.m.), the strong cold front that has been sweeping across the country has arrived in Cape May, with attending showers. Tomorrow will be a good day for songbirds, but how good remains to be seen, since we've had some good migration weather in recent days, which means there is not that much of a backlog of migrants waiting to move. Or maybe there is, tomorrow will tell. Meanwhile, over 400 Peregrines have been counted in Cape May in the last 4 days, how many more are in the pipe for tomorrow? It should be a fine hawk day, too.

Pictures on Furlough: Higbee and Stone Harbor

[Western Willet bathing hard, Stone Harbor, NJ October 4. Click to enlarge photos.]

 

I guess there are worst things than to be out of work during early October. Since I work for a federal agency, I am stuck at home watching the antics of congress. . . well, not exactly.  If they don't want me to work, well then I'll go play, with mornings at Higbee Beach WMA and afternoons kayaking the back bays, making pretty pictures and with time for naps, too!

 

My only complaint is the weather, with unseasonably mild temps and winds from the wrong direction to make for flights of passerines or hawks. Happily, the National Weather Service is considered an essential government service, so at least I can look at the forecast and see that relief and birds will be coming the middle of next week. Wednesday is my current pick for the next special day, and it looks like Thursday will be good, too. We'll see if the shutdown drags out just a bit longer, just through next week, please. . .then let us go back to doing the good work of and for the people.

 

[This 3rd cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull, right, was on the Stone Harbor Point Beach today.]

 

 [A few Semipalmated Plovers can still be found on beaches and mudflats, like these two at Stone Harbor Point today.]

 [Ruby-crowned Kinglets have "begun," signaling the advancing of the season and the diminishment of the longer-distance migrant passerines of August and September. Higbee Beach yesterday]

 

 [Another mainly October migrant: Blue-headed Vireo.]

 [Red-eyed Vireos are tapering off, but there were still quite a few at Higbee yesterday, and several have been visiting my bird bath this afternoon.]

 [Black-throated Green Warbler, Higbee Beach WMA yesterday.]

 

Fri-D: Molting Shorebirds

[Short-billed Dowitcher molting to winter plumage, Stone Harbor, NJ today. Click to enlarge photos.]

As autumn gets later, the shorebirds we see will trend more and more to winter plumage - which means they will look more and more like each other, with uniform gray upperparts and paler underparts. Many shorebirds begin fall molt at migration stopover sites and complete it on or near the wintering grounds, though there are exceptions. Late fall and winter is the time to hone your identification skills using structure, but also don't forget that bare part colors also still work.

Here we have two species in molt to winter plumage. Above, a Short-billed Dowitcher has replaced most of its back and scapular feathers with uniform gray winter plumage ones.

Below, a Dunlin has molted most of its feathers, but you can see a couple of retained breeding plumage feathers - the orangy ones that, when the bird is in full breeding plumage gave it its old name, "Red-backed Sandpiper." Dunlin, by the way, is an exception in that in "our" subspecies, adults molt to winter plumage on the breeding grounds, then come south, and most juveniles also molt extensively before they come south. That's why we don't see breeding-plumaged Dunlin on southbound migration, and rarely see fully juvenal-plumaged birds. It also explains why Dunlin is a late migrant compared to other shorebirds, with the bulk of them arriving in September or later, compared to the July-August migration of many other shorebird species.

Both birds were photographed from a kayak at Stone Harbor/Nummy Island today.

[Dunlin nearly all the way into winter plumage, Stone Harbor today.]

Thoughtful Thursday

“All of us have schnozzles . . . if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles, instead of defending them, we begin to laugh, and the world laughs with us.”
- Jimmy Durante 

Wordless Wednesday: Yellow, or Green