HOT, HUMID and Hummingbirds

Well now that the Northwood store inventory is done I was able to get back outside and see what might be moving through Cape May.

We decided that the "Beanery" was the place to bird since we were a little short on time and the fact that it's been awhile since either of us had set foot on the property. NOTE: Please remember that the Beanery is private property and that you must be a current member of NJAS or CMBO to access the property. Beanery passes can be obtained at either the Northwood Center or Center for Research and Education.

Anyway, the numbers of species observed wasn't very high but some interesting things were revealed when I input my data on e-Bird.

It seems that this morning was the day of 3's. If you look at the species numbers you'll see that we saw "3" of a number of species. In fact almost half the species we observed were totaled in 3's. Now having spent some time in the research field that brings all sorts of questions to mind as we did observe a few birds together in 3's. Mostly, this means that I was only paying attention to species up to three individuals I guess.

There have definitely been more waterthrushes around. Most I have heard (I personally have a hard time telling the call notes of Northern and Louisiana apart, maybe Michael O'Brien will help us out with this one day soon; hint, hint!) but some birds have been nice enough to show themselves to me. This morning we were fortunate enough to have two Northern waterthrushes "bobbing" along on the ground in the wet railroad track woods. This afforded us an excellent opportunity to watch the foraging behaviour if this species.

Another interesting observation was a Ruby-throated hummingbird that was chasing a Tree swallow around for a while. I would never have guessed that a hummingbird would chase a Tree swallow, especially out in the open well away from anywhere that the bird might consider it's territory. Maybe it hadn't had the obligatory cup of joe yet?

None the less, it's a hot sticky day here in South Jersey. One of those days I'm actually sort of glad to have to be inside.

Our list of species is below.

Location: The Beanery
Observation date: 8/2/07
Number of species: 19
Mallard 3
Great Egret 3
Green Heron 3
Laughing Gull 3
Mourning Dove 3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
American Crow 3
Purple Martin 8
Barn Swallow 2
Tufted Titmouse 1
Carolina Wren 6
American Robin 2
Yellow Warbler 1
Northern Waterthrush 2
Northern Cardinal 3
Blue Grosbeak 3
Indigo Bunting 6
Common Grackle 20
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/)