Wordless Wednesday: Rays Through Fog

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.

Thoughtful Thursday

"Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets."
- Henry Miller

Froze-out Birds

[Red-necked Grebe at Nummy Island, NJ today.]

 

Arctic blasts of air tend to move things, when they're not freezing things, like my home's water line, for example, which necessitated a day off and visits to the hardware store and the dank innards of the crawl space to apply heat tape to pipes.  Ah, but the Arctic air also freezes water bodies, which forces birds wintering to the north to reconsider sometimes.  That, I presume, is what put the Red-necked Grebe at Nummy Island this afternoon, where I was delighted to find and photograph it. Red-necked Grebes aren't exactly rare but close to it, and this I believe is the first I've ever photographed in Cape May County. I'd be curious to know exactly where the grebe was before it up and moved to Cape May - could be as far as the Great Lakes, but probably it was a shorter hop, perhaps from some inland reservoir that froze over and forced the move.

 

Near the Grebe were two Common Goldeneye, a presumed immature male showing a trace of a white spot on the face, and a female, and near them were numerous more common things like Bufflehead and Red-breasted Mergansers, all concentrated near the toll bridge at the south end of Nummy Island.

 

 

 [Immature male and female Common Goldeneye with a Red-breasted Merganser at Nummy Island today.]

Last Bird, First Bird, Good Birds

[Unexpected: this Painted Bunting, likely an immature male since it is so bright, was discovered by Bob and Stephanie Brown in Cape May Point, NJ this morning.]

By paying just a little bit of attention, I determined that the last bird species I recorded in 2013 was the Dunlin that shot across the Nummy Island causeway in front of the truck on New Year's Eve, shortly before dark and shortly after we recorded Snowy Owl and Snow Buntings in Stone Harbor. A fine finish to a good year.  This morning it was a cardinal chipping outside the bedroom window that became bird number one, beginning a day spent with friends re-tracking-down the Ash-throated Flycatcher and White-winged Dove of yesterday, as well as the continuing Rufous Hummingbird and the pictured surprise, an immature male or female Painted Bunting.  Not even Cape May often produces so many rare birds back to back.

Now, what should the bird goal be for 2014?  A big Cape May County year, perhaps? Several friends are threatening to do just that, why not me too, I wonder.  I dunno, I'm not feeling chasing birds, even just in the county, right now. I had this idea that maybe I would photograph every bird species I see in 2014, but that got broken up right away today when I was unable to get shots of the first several species I found, mainly from lack of patience.  This bird goal thing is going to require further reflection. . .