Peregrine Falcon makes a visit to CMBO's Northwood Center

Well as things go, yesterday was a nice day to be a bird watcher; despite the heat. I heard that there was a pretty nice hawk flight and that sea watch is starting to pick up as well. Keep the sea watch in mind as it should only get better as the days pass. Soon we will be witness to tens of thousands of scoter (both Black and Surf) in addition to Double-crested cormorants. Not to mention the other ducks/sea birds which migrate past the south Jersey coast.

My birding yesterday morning was quite nice. We walked Cape May Point with some friends again. And, like the birds, these friends do have to migrate back to there own "territories." We wish them well in there travels and look forward to their return in the spring. I have no bird list to share at this point due to the fact that it seems the eBird sever is down and will not let me log onto my account. Once I am able to get my data input to the system I'll edit the list at the bottom of this post for those who would like to see what was around Cape May Point on Monday morning.

Do not despair though, I have a great story to tell. It just so happens at the end of the day as I was wrapping up the store stuff, Sheila and Marleen were getting ready to head out the door. All of a sudden Sheila said that it seemed that some one had left some thing on my truck. Taking a closer look this is what we saw.....
My truck is on the left, can you tell what this bird is? Ok, I gave it away in my title, your right. A young (male?) Peregrine falcon was sitting on the back of my truck! Only in Cape May. For those wondering it is a "Tundra." Or as is stated by some on the hawk watch platform, "typical tundra." But that's not the whole story.

We tried to snap photos as best we could. I was using one of our demo spotting scopes to do a little impromptu digi-scoping but that was not working as I could tell that all the photos were coming out blurry. So we decided to open the door a bit to remove the "glass" factor. Quietly and very slowly we opened the door so as to not scare away the bird. Then, a car drove by.....
And the bird didn't seem to care. So, I figured that I'd try and step out on the front deck to get a few closer and hopefully better digi-scope pics. I did eventually come up with one decent digi-pic......
After a little while longer, Marleen and Shelia were needing to get to their car to get home but didn't want to push the peregrine. After another vehicle drove by, a large RV, it was apparent that this bird was simply fine where "he" was and had no real intentions of moving until ready. So we headed down, I went with them to see if I could get a few better pics. As it turned out, the bird let us approach very closely......
Soon enough, another car came down E. Lake Drive and the peregrine decided that it had enough and flew off. It didn't go too far though, as it flew across Lighthouse Ave. and landed on a Purple martin/House sparrow house. Interestingly after the bird flew I noticed that it left it's calling card in the form of a large scratch on my topper, left by the hallux presumably, when the bird launched into flight.
So, there you have it. The story of the day the peregrine came to visit CMBO's Northwood Center.

Keep in mind that a cold front it supposed to be moving through our area with a reinforcing front to be moving through over the weekend. High temps. are supposed to be in the mid to upper 60's over the weekend. What October is supposed to feel like! Make sure and keep checking in on the birding forecast to see what the weather is doing. Get out birding this weekend and see what's around. We (CMBO and the peregrines) hope to see you down here in Cape May!