Belleplain Tanagers and Thoughts on Gifts and Life Looks

 [Adult male Summer Tanager in Belleplain State Forest, NJ along Tom Field Road today. A gift. . .]

Every now and then a bird gives you a gift, revealing itself to you in perfect light at close range.  You never know when it's going to happen, which is one reason to keep going in the field day after day and year after year.  Some people use the phrase "life look" to mean what I'm talking about here.  It's not that it's a life bird, but rather that it's the best look you've ever had at this species. The look of a lifetime.

Today was my life look day for Summer Tanager, though I have to clarify by saying I've seen plenty of these at close range on the Texas coast and elsewhere.  But today in Belleplain State Forest we saw males, and females, and males and females interacting together, and a really groovy looking red and yellow-green first year male.  They seemed to be coming out to show themselves to us, too, working the roadsides or landing in trees right above our heads.  Like, for example, the bird pictured above, which we'd been hearing and glimpsing but not really seeing well when it decided to alight in bare branches directly overhead.  I could only say, "Summer Tanager, right there," but that was enough for my companions Tim and Allison to find it.

[One groovy looking bird: a first spring male Summer Tanager in Belleplain this morning, decked out in first year yellow green and second year red. Click to enlarge photos.]

Only the Summer Tanagers were life looks today, but we had other gifts, like two rival male Louisiana Waterthrushes countersinging on opposite sides of the road, or a male Hooded Warbler that sat up for a good if quick view, or a Worm-eating Warbler feeding on dead leaf clusters as they so often do.  You can't make birds do this stuff, you can only hope they do.

A Touch of Color at Higbee

[Male Black-throated Green Warbler at Higbee Beach WMA, NJ this morning.  Click to enlarge photos.]

Ah, May.  When Vince Elia's text message about an "excellent fallout at Higbee Beach" came through this morning, I was already on my way out the door.  And Higbee was excellent, all right:  I personally found 20 warbler species, and missed some species that others had.  A Kentucky Warbler popped up right in front of Vince and I, but my best bird was one I only heard:  A Bicknell's Thrush, which sang and gave a flight call near the parking lot.  Multiple Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, and Canada Warblers were some of the other highlights.

[Magnolia Warbler, Higbee this morning.]

[Looking up at a Chestnut-sided Warbler.]

[Indigo Buntings were in multiples at Higbee, singing and chasing each other around.]

Along the Roads of Belleplain

 [Ovenbird along Pine Swamp Road in Belleplain State Forest, NJ today.]

My favorite birding companion has a knee injury that confines us to roadside birding for the time being, but the roadside birding was mighty good in Belleplain State Forest today.  Ovenbirds, arriving in droves in recent days, postured and even battled for territory right in front of us, often strutting up and down the roadway edges, singing from perches low and high, and otherwise clearly advertising their presence to rivals.  Visions of Ovenbird as a peaceful bird were shattered as we watched several engage in bill to feather combat, struggling with each other on the ground and then launching into short pursuits into nearby cover.  It was quite the show. Once more I am reminded of the fact that the fun in birding really starts after you've identified the bird and then spend time watching it.

A Hooded Warbler also did a rare thing and cooperated by landing on the road in front of us, also flying back and forth across several times and landing on exposed perches.  I swear with my right hand on the Sibley guide that we don't use recordings in heavily birded Belleplain, and were just lucky to be in the right spot at the right time.

Other sightings included a Broad-winged Hawk overhead near the famous Belleplain "triangle" near Sunset Bridge, a singing Louisiana Waterthrush and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Eastern Wood-pewee in, etc.  A good morning.

[You gotta like it when Hooded Warblers cooperate, like this one near the triangle in Belleplain.]

Three Weeks

 [Green Heron flies over Cape May Point, NJ this morning, an arriving bird seen from one of the dune crossovers. Click to enlarge photos.]

Yeah, so, it's been three weeks since I last blogged and I hope people are still checking this site now and then.  I didn't die or anything, it just feels that way a little bit when you can't be out doing what you love, meaning birding and naturalizing and even just soaking up the spring sunshine.

It's all about to bust open, too.  We spent the first part of the morning watching birds arrive in Cape May from Delaware, looking south from the dunes as egrets crossed the bay and swallows swept past.  A jaeger or two hunted in the rips, some fancy looking Bonaparte's gulls passed, gannets offshore, &c.  Then we poked around Cape May Point State Park, where a Prairie Warbler sang and the yellow-rumpeds thronged with Palm Warblers and looked especially sharp in their breeding plumage. 

I feel as though I ought to have some conclusive remarks about a three week absence from the field.  A lot changes in three weeks in April.  That's about as conclusive as I've got right now, that and a commitment not to miss three weeks in spring anymore. . .

[Flock of Short-billed Dowitchers fresh from Delaware, Cape May Point today.]

[Fancy Yellow-rumped Warbler in breeding plumage, Cape May Point State Park today.]

Luck

 [Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Cape May Point, NJ, April 6, 2014.  Originally found by Rob and Lisa Fanning a couple weeks ago, this was a rare NJ lifer for me.]

"Well, I finally got the damn sparrow," I told Mike Crewe and Glen Davis, meaning no disrespect to the Eurasian Tree Sparrow that seems to have found its way to Cape May Point under its own power and was discovered there a couple weeks ago by Rob and Lisa Fanning.  Everyone's been seeing it, everyone but me it seems like, but only because I hadn't taken the time to look.  Today I did look, and got lucky.  Very lucky, because I have no patience when it comes to staked out feeder birds, and lo and behold I walked up and the bird was at the feeder for me to see and photograph. Tick. It seems to me this bird will likely be accepted as a "natural" vagrant from the St. Louis population by the NJRBC; see Mike Crewe's excellent discussion of the bird here.

The Pine Warbler photo below was also a bit of luck, in that I set up to photograph it as it fed on a Cape May Point lawn, and lo and behold once again, the bird fed its way toward me, eventually giving me full-frame photo ops.  I'll take it.

[Pine Warbler, Cape May Point, NJ this morning.]