Who says you can't have good birding in Cape May on easterly to southerly winds?

Considering I was only out for about an hour and forty minuets, I'd say I had a pretty good morning. Take a look at this list below, I think you'll agree.

One of the highlights of the morning were the three male Cape May warblers flitting in a tree at the first "shrub island" in the first field at Higbee. While at first glance and given the unfavorable winds, Higbee seemed to be quite dead. That is until you actually stopped and listened. There were numbers of zeeps, zips and such going over head. One of those days that might have been better to be at the Morning Flight Project. But, if you actually tried looking deeper in the woods there were flocks of warblers and vireos moving deep in the forest. This made the birding quite tough and I suspect many folks walked away feeling that there were very few birds around, when in fact, the opposite was true.

The best spot (for me and a few others at least) was the first bit of woods on the right hand side just into the second field. It was on my way back to the parking lot that I happened upon a nice flock moving through these woods. In evidence was a Philadelphia vireo, Blackburnian, Black-throated blue, and Blackpoll warblers, American redstarts and a few Red-eyed vireos amongst other species. All in all, a fine day in the field; for a day when I started out questioning myself for why I was bothering to get out of bed. I'm glad I did.

On a quick side note, CMBO's Northwood Center woods continue to delight members and customers alike. Today there have been at least two Cape May warblers viewed and one hanging around being seen readily. Also a Philadelphia vireo, Blackburnian and Tennessee warblers along with Northern Parula and a few Red-breasted nuthatches.

The moral of this story, just because the winds don't seem to be right for migration, doesn't mean that the birding will be poor. Sometimes you just have to look a little deeper in the woods to find the birds you seek.

As usual, the list of species seen this morning is below.


Location: Higbee Beach
Observation date: 9/21/07
Number of species: 43

Northern Harrier 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 2
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 8
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 7
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Philadelphia Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 9
American Crow 1
Tree Swallow 28
Carolina Chickadee 5
Red-breasted Nuthatch 3
Carolina Wren 8
House Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Veery 1
American Robin 8
Gray Catbird 7
European Starling 25
Cedar Waxwing 47
Northern Parula 14
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1
Cape May Warbler 3
Black-throated Blue Warbler 8
Blackburnian Warbler 1
Prairie Warbler 1
Bay-breasted Warbler 1
Blackpoll Warbler 6
Black-and-white Warbler 10
American Redstart 2
Northern Waterthrush 1
Common Yellowthroat 7
Northern Cardinal 8
Indigo Bunting 6
Bobolink 59
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 3
American Goldfinch 1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)