Goodenification

The title is offical counter's Tom Reed's word, so I don't know if I spelled it right. But the hawkwatch in Cape May, NJ sure enough goodenified as the day unfolded. New Red-shouldered Hawk single day record, multiple Goldens and multiple Goshawks, finches flying over it all and ducks on the pond in front. All the photos below were taken from the hawkwatch platform.

 

 [Above and below, immature Northern Goshawk. I wouldn't want to be at the bottom of that stoop!]

 [Above and below: Golden Eagle (s).]

 

 

First thing this morning I snuck around the South Cape May Meadows, where the number of Song and Swamp Sparrows was almost funny. Among them was a Grasshopper Sparrow, which I did not text out for fear of it being trampled by searchers (you're not supposed to leave the paths at the meadows anyway, but you know how that goes). A Hooded Merganser rocketed overhead, and a Goshawk coursed down the duneline hunting.

 

[Adult Red-shouldered Hawk over the hawkwatch platform with vultures.]



A Hurricane of Birds

 [Pearls of great price, three Evening Grosbeaks over Cape May Point, NJ this morning. Click to enlarge all photos.]

What passed over Cape May Point this morning cannot be put into pictures, and probably not words, either. Waves of robins - I dunno, 80,000? Similar numbers of Red-winged Blackbirds, in tight flocks storming the dunes, parting around us. Waxwings, let's say 10,000? Pine Siskins - 3,000? More? Michael O'Brien clicked over 300 White-winged Crossbills, and there were way, way more Siskins. And Red Crossbills, and just a spicing of Evening Grosbeaks, the first I've seen in NJ in something like 15 years. We collected on the dunes of Cape May Point, and hardly used binoculars, gaping open-mouthed at the spectacle.

It should be noted that most of the fancy finches in this post were detected by ear first - learning those ringing, zinging calls is the way to detect these things. I can't wait for deer season, because with this many finches around, who knows what full days of listening from a tree stand in the woods of north Jersey will bring?

What brought it to Cape May was stiff west-northwest wind at the beginning of November. Other fancy stuff I saw included Golden Eagle from the hawkwatch and an Orange-crowned Warbler in the first hedge at the Beanery. I was not there for the Franklin's Gull seen from the hawkwatch first and dunes later, nor for the White-winged Dove or Scarlet Tanager in Cape May Point. We all wondered how many birds we were missing - can you imagine, given these?

Lest it be forgotten, Scott Whittle compared Purple Finch calls to Dolphins clicking, perhaps the first time such comparison has ever been drawn. . .

 [Male and female White-winged Crossbills over Cape May Point today. Your looking for a bird slightly bigger than a siskin with big old wing bars and the voice of stones skipped on ice - chew, chew, tschew, something like that.]

[This Purple Finch was so hungry it fed unabated at point blank range on multiflora rose hips at the Beanery, never even cleaning its bill between berry bites.]

 [Sam Galick pointed out this Blue-headed Vireo, getting late for this species, at the Cape May Point dunes.]

[Big flights are not without carnage. This Red-winged Blackbird was brought up by a local resident, apparently hit a wire and fell from the skies. Road-killed robins were all too evident along local roads and the Garden State Parkway today - insignificant compared to the volume of the flight, but I feel for each one.]

Thoughtful Thursday - Safety

"Safety is an illusion. Obsession with safety is a weakness."
-Unknown

Wordless Wednesday - Combat

[Click to enlarge.]

Storm Birds, Storm Birding

 ["Holy Smoke!" That was my reaction when my friend Erin Kiefer asked, via facebook, for help identifying this juvenile Red-billed Tropicbird - a howling rarity, apparent second state record - which was brought into the Woodford-Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge today. It was apparently found near Carney's Point, way up the Delaware Bay. Photo by Erin Kiefer.]

That Sandy made landfall north of Cape May spared us a great deal of flood damage (you DON'T want to be northeast of the eye, just ask NYC), but so far it seems it spared us spectacular birds.. . .

Well, except for the tropicbird, above, and a number of Band-rumped Storm-petrels reported around the state, and nice numbers of Parasitic and Pomarine Jaegers.

Living as I do north of Cape Island, I was one of a number of birders who tried to get onto the island and failed. I'm a lousy liar - nope, no home or business in Cape May, just trying to go birdwatching. Got some nice police-officer smirks for that one. Oh well, there were birds along the bay, too, including both jaegers, plenty of gannets, all three scoters, and others at Miami Beach in the Villas.

With the intense rainfall, 10 or more inches on the bayshore, Fishing Creek is dumping water into the bay like crazy - and fish, baitfish that is, and the terns were concentrated at the outflow.

 [Forster's tern at Miami Beach, NJ in front of storm clouds.]

 [Northern Gannets were constant on the bay, many flying south toward the ocean close to shore.]

[Two geese, Brant over Canadas. Click to enlarge photos.]