Common is Cool

 [Snowy Egret in high, if not highest, breeding plumage, Heislerville, NJ on Sunday. It would look prettier with a background of lush green grass instead of dead Spartina - but wait a month or so, some of the high marsh is already beginning to green up.]

It wasn't just butterflies over the weekend (see below for them), but I didn't get any weekend photos of "rare" birds, most notably not of the Swallow-tailed Kite. That bird, by the way, was a total gift, sailing as it did across the Garden State Parkway as we headed to Cape May for a feast of very good lamb and too much very good wine Easter evening (thanks, Scott!)

No photo - but at least the camera survived tumbling to the front of the car when I slammed on the brakes and went from the left lane at 70(ish) to parked on the right shoulder, fumbling for camera and with seatbelt.

Common is cool with me when it comes to birds, and grows cooler all the time. And we still can learn from common birds. One trick I've adopted is that, when a new field guide comes out, I look up familiar birds to see what the latest guide author can teach. Richard Crossley's words about Snowy Egret, "Leg, bill, and lores change color, so know the size and shape well" are apt at this season, when high breeding condition flushes many birds with their best looks of the year (I do favor Richard's book more each time I look at it, though I won't comment on his"upside down" business... ). Soak up egrets this time of year, that's my advice.

 [Ospreys are back on most of their platforms now. This female waited for her mate to bring nesting material for her to add to the nest on Sunday. This is the nest we visited with last summer - in keeping with the theme of knowing and enjoying common birds, I suspect we'll be back here again, since the nest is located such that it can be observed from close by without disturbing the occupants.]

[Brant will be with us until May, and you've seen a zillion of them, though perhaps not this one. . . and check out the range map for Brant in your favorite field guide, and respect the common all the more.]

Small Packages

 [Azure, near Belleplain State Forest's famous "triangle" on Saturday. Dozens of azures fluttered about along the trails and roadsides, rarely resting long enough to give you time to get down on the ground with them and take a picture.]

Now that it's Monday morning and we're rushing off to work, or are supposed to be, it occurs to me that the smallest package of all is a weekend in spring. A weekend when you want a week, or a month, a year. A weekend, in this case, spent pursuing nickel-sized butterflies in sheltered nooks in an otherwise windy Belleplain State Forest.

 [Henry's Elfins, tiny but striking, were the most common of three elfin species. A tailed species, Henry's have a "frosted" hindwing with two white spots at each end of the post medial line (the line framing the dark inner half of the hindwing.]

Birds were fairly quiet in the wind and cool on Saturday, something confirmed by Jim Armstrong, Bert Hixon, Shaun Bamford et. al., who were finishing up a field trip when we met them at Belleplain's headquarters. Certainly a lot more Pine Warblers were present than we were hearing, ditto Yellow-throated Warblers. The Pines I suspect are busy nest-building, perhaps the Yellow-throateds as well. A Louisiana Waterthrush did sing near the little footbridge over Lake Nummy, an atypical location for this bird. But at least it was a very butterflyey day.

[The gaudiest elfin, Eastern Pine Elfin on Tom Field Road.]

[We saw only this one Brown Elfin .]

[Duskywings were abundant, but always landed spreadwinged to absorb the sun's heat, so it was difficult to confirm whether they were Horace's or Juvenal's (have to see the underside of the wing to reliably tell). These are slightly larger than the elfins, size of a quarter maybe.]

[Greater Yellowlegs foraging along the shore of Lake Nummy.]
A high tide visit to Heislerville on Sunday was a bit of a disappointment, because the impoundments are still very full and supported only a couple yellowlegs and a Killdeer. The rookery there was active, however, with Double-crested Cormorants joining the Black-crowned Night-herons and egrets in constructing nests.
And now the weekend has disappeared, like the Swallow-tailed Kite that flew over us at mile 3.1 on the Garden State Parkway shortly before sundown on Sunday, headed inland. I'd like both back, please. . .

Thoughtful Thursday

 

 [Shadbush or Serviceberry, Heislerville, NJ]

"And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."
-  Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant 

Wordless Wednesday: The Many Poses of Atlantic Brant

[Sandy Hook on Sunday, Click to enlarge.]

Rare Birds are Rare

 [Second cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull (left), Sunday at Sandy Hook, with Herring Gulls. Lessbacks carry a lot of their gear in the bed - what I mean is, a lot of the bird sticks out behind the legs, compared to other gulls. A second Lessback, an adult, was nearby.]

When things seem not quite right, simply driving a pick-up truck a few hundred miles in any particular direction helps. At least me. Preferably with a truck bed full of camping gear, fishing rods, and food - but even a couple bicycles in the bed plus a scope in the back seat lend the feel of an expedition, and an escape.

Thus, driving north to Sandy Hook for the New Jersey Bird Records Committee meeting on Sunday felt a lot better than it sounds, especially when I got onto the Hook and had gannets to the left of me, gannets to the right, and, even, gannets flying directly overhead, and over land, as they crossed from the bay to the ocean over Sandy Hook. Not a behavior seen every day.

Later, after the meeting, when I met up with my daughter Rebecca for some bicycling at the Hook, I tried to explain what bird records committees do: examine rare bird reports for accuracy, review photos and sightings reports. . . She said, "Well, that sounds theboringest. . ."

Thinking she used some new modern-speak word, I said, "Well, it's not really that bad. . . " and then she laughed and clarified,

"No, Dad, I said,  'laborious,' not 'the boringest.'"

And it was laborious, in part because there were a LOT of rare birds in NJ last year, making it even clearer why Tom Reed was able to set a new big year record in NJ in 2011.  Hurricane Irene (tropical terns and frigatebirds) + rare hummers + flycatchers + sparrows  + Wilson's Plover + many others - Tom picked a good year. And executed extremely well.

Becky and I had a great time cycling the hook end to end and back again, seeing Cedar Waxwing flocks and all those gannets plunge-diving, several Ospreys back on their nest platforms, White-winged Scoters and a couple Red-necked Grebes on the ocean,  hearing short-distance migrants like Golden-crowned Kinglets and Brown Creepers, and communing with chortling Atlantic Brant.

Becky was even tolerant of my gull-scanning. There were a LOT of gulls at North Beach, drawn there by a dredging operation depositing food (bivalves) on the beach. And I asked myself, "Why can't I find an Iceland Gull?" I know what they look like, have seen 100's or more, and yet, all these gulls and not one.

I'll tell you why. Because birding theorem #1 has been proven over and over again:  Rare birds are rare.

[Second cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull in flight, Sandy Hook Sunday. Mantle too dark for Herring Gull, bright white rump, all dark upperwing (unlike Herring).]