Confined to the Car. . .

[This Horned Grebe at Sunset Lake in Wildwood on Sunday was nearly all the way to breeding plumage, only a little to go on the head and neck. Kathy and Roger Horn stopped by there later and found 3 Horned Grebes, all looking similarly spiffy. Click to enlarge photos.]

Isn't it fine to take a stroll as spring unfolds, or wouldn't it be? A messed-up knee has me car-bound for a bit (and fun meds keep me on the passenger side for the next few days), so where would I bird from the road if I were me?

Plenty of options, lead among which Sunday March 27 were the Atlantic side pools, bays and marshes from Two Mile Landing/Ocean Drive north to Stone Harbor. I've been hankering for arriving egrets and herons, and certain duck numbers are building, along with their antics. At different locations we hit tight flocks of 50-75 Red-breasted Mergansers and Buffleheads churning the water with feeding and courting activity, and smaller numbers of Long-tailed Ducks and scaup. American Oystercatcher numbers are building on sod banks and flats, too. Other by-car options this week would include the Delaware Bayshore from Norbury's Landing south to Cape May for Northern Gannets and gulls. Hoping to get up to Heislerville to car-bird soon, and maybe seek some arriving landbirds in Belleplain this weekend. Better done by bicycle, but it's spring and you do what you can. . . . at least I got a yard bird out of it Sunday morning, that being a Boat-tailed Grackle, which, though I live only a few blocks from Delaware Bay salt marsh, has eluded the yard list until now.

[60 or so Bufflehead were on the "Coast Guard Ponds," part of the Two Mile Beach unit of Cape May National Wildlife Refuge along Ocean Drive, opposite Two Mile Landing. With them were over a dozen Lesser Scaup, some of which are in the above photo with female and male Bufflehead (buffles are the right two birds.) Lesser Scaup's white wing stripes cut off at the outer secondaries, halfway out the wing. Remember, Lesser Scaup have lesser white. If these were Greater Scaup, the stripe would continue out onto the primaries. But notice how the light can play with this field mark, and your head: the harsh backlighting here illuminates the primaries and creates a ghost wing stripe. Click to enlarge.]

[These two female Red-breasted Mergansers fed under the free bridge to Nummy Island. Many others were in Great Channel there, and another major flock of mergs, at least 75 birds, was concentrated in a channel in Grassy Sound, south of the big bridge into North Wildlwood.]

[Soon we'll take Great Egrets for granted, but not in March. These flew in from the south and landed heavily on Nummy Island Sunday evening, clearly arriving birds.]

Six yellow Warbler Pics

[Put the lemon in the coconut - this male Yellow Warbler lingered in a coconut palm on the coast of Belize, March 17 2011. Yellow Warblers are very widespread and involve complex taxonomy, e.g. Dunn and Garret's Warblers book give it over 20 pages. The pictured bird, the aestiva subspecies, is "our" Yellow Warbler, and winters from Mexico through Central and into South America. It is very much a habitat generalist on the wintering grounds, which helps explain why it remains relatively common while other warblers decline. Click to enlarge.]

By March, don't your eyes crave yellow? The American Goldfinches in pre-alternate molt at my feeders show more yellow every day, which is great, but what we really need are WARBLERS! Decent movements of Pine Warblers have already occurred in Cape May and more can be found singing at breeding sites every day. We can hope for the first Yellow Warbler shortly after tax day.

In the meantime, they say Americans should travel more. I agree, and not just for birds, but they do make a fine excuse. So off to Belize we went.

We wound up recording 24 North American warblers among close to 300 bird species during our Belize trip a week ago. Ours was certainly not an exhaustive tour, but some of us talked about returning with backpacks to explore where birders seldom go, visions of Harpy Eagles in our heads. Sounds like heaven.
Belize is a quite small country on the Caribbean, with the Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to the north, from which launch many trans-gulf migrants bound for the shores of Texas and Louisiana; Guatemala to the west, and Honduras to the south.

Not counting the locally breeding Grace's Warblers and Gray-crowned Yellowthroats, here are the warblers we encountered: Blue-winged Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Palm Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Prothonotary Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler,  Ovenbird,  Northern Waterthrush, Louisiana Waterthrush,  Kentucky Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warbler, Wilson's Warbler and Yellow-breasted Chat.

In six weeks that list or one like it will be attainable in the mid-Atlantic - can't wait!

[Belize is at the the center of Magnolia Warbler winter range. In some brushy habitats it was the most common bird we encountered! This funky looking one, still in prealternate molt, lounged in our Belize City hotel courtyard. Click to enlarge.] 

Belize really helped me dial in on one of Magnolia Warbler's calls, an inflected, nasal nieerf that they seemed to use as the primary wintering call.I've heard it stateside, and I bet now that I know it well I'll hear it more.

[Cape May Warblers winter mainly on Carribean Islands or hugging the coast, where this one posed in Hopkins, Belize just a stone's throw from the water. March 18, 2011, click to enlarge.] 

[Male Hooded Warbler bathing in a rain shower outside the cabana. Hoodeds winter mainly in lowlands from Mexico and the Carribean to Panama. That white flash is a good field mark as they flit away back home in Belleplain State Forest, NJ. Near Hopkins, Belize, March 20, 2011, click to enlarge.]

[Yellowstart: dark lores indicate a first spring male American Redstart, not a female. Not all of them show the dark breast spotting this one has. Note also the orangy (as opposed to yellow) breast, wing and tail patches. This was another cabana buddy in Hopkins. Redstarts winter mainly from Mexico south through northern South America. March 20, 2011, click to enlarge.]

"Mangrove" Yellow Warbler, a candidate for future splitting from Yellow, in mangroves, where else, on a cay off Belize. This species or subspecies (or subspecies -ies) has been seen in Texas and California, even nesting on South Padre Island, but, well, good luck with that. I'd seen the bird a bunch of years ago on the mainland coast of the Sea of Cortez; it was delightful to meet up with it again March 18, 2011.]

FOY Louisiana Waterhtrush - in Belize

[We saw more Northern Waterthrushes than Louisiana's in Belize, but this one is a Louisiana - on the deck of Pook's Hill Lodge. Click to enlarge.]

As predicted, my FOY (First Of Year, a good acronym for birders) Louisiana Waterthrush was in Belize, although the Cape May FOY will not be far behind. Indeed, many Louisiana Waterthrushes had pulled out of Belize when we were there last week, and some had already reached breeding sites in the southern U.S. I see, for example, that Nate Swick had one March 20 at Eno River State Park in North Carolina. Cape May birds arrive within a stone's throw of April 1, and north Jersey streams get their's only a few days later.

One of the best field marks to separate Louisiana Waterthrush from Northern shows well on the bird pictured above, which we watched while drinking our morning coffee. Louisiana's eyebrow, or supercilium, is white, bold, and long, and generally widens behind the eye. Northern's is narrower, shorter, often buffy, and never widens behind the eye.

Belize - Hopkins edition

A big highlight yesterday was a flock of several hundred orioles, both Baltimore and Orchard, which flew out of a vast area of orange groves and seemed to be preparing to roost for the night. Up in the mountains, as predicted, I saw my first Louisiana Waterthrush of 2011 - on the steps of the Pook's Hill Lodge! Other North American migrants have included Kentucky, Hooded, and Black-throated Green Warblers, plus a sodden Broad-winged Hawk after a downpour, with Double-toothed Kites overhead!

Magnolia Warbler seems to be the single most common warbler migrant we've seen in Belize, of about 19 species, and we've found it in virtually all habitat types.

I'll get some photos up here on return to Cape May next week.

Belize - Crooked Tree Edition

Rather than spend space on endemic Yucatan Jays or the Squirrel Cuckoo we're hearing from the bar ( see the Twitter posts for some of that), folks back in the U.S. Might be interested in knowing the more common North American migrants we're finding. In order of abundance, the most common warblers here have been Magnolia, American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush, Yellow, Black-and-white, and Yellow-throated. We haven't hit primary forest yet, where things like Kentucky Warbler should pick up.