Catching Up

[In the quite unseasonal department, Calvin Brennan photographed this 3rd cycle Glaucous Gull at Heislerville on Saturday, June 12.]

I'm just back from the boreal forest - Vermont's northeast kingdom to be exact - so it's time to catch up on the Cape May bird news. It's fun to be on the receiving end of the blog, and read recent posts from Mike and Tom to find out what I missed.

Birds haven't made it to the blog yet include Saturday's Glaucous Gull, pictured above, in Heislerville, Cumberland County. I hear Calvin has had Lesser Black-backed there as well. Dave La Puma went out on Mike Fritz's boat on Sunday, fishing up to 30 miles offshore near the 'Cigar.' They saw about 12 Cory's Shearwaters, 1 Greater Shearwater and about 150 Wilson's Storm-petrels; Dave tells me most of the shearwaters were far offshore, more than 10 miles, as you'd expect.

Closer to shore, Michael O'Brien had a Parasitic Jaeger in the rips this morning. Vince Elia heard Black-billed Cuckoo and Northern Bobwhite in TNC's Cape Island Preserve, reached from the end of Wilson Avenue off Broadway. Vince also had a Pine Warbler sing once at St. Peter's, along with a White-eyed Vireo. Interestingly, I also had a White-eyed sing a couple times at my house, another place they don't nest. The vireos are likely floater males, i.e. birds without territory or mate. As to the Pine, it is also likely a floater, though one wonders if it could be derived from the pair that nested at the state park, since we saw the female feeding fledged young there a week ago. There is a lot of pine in Cape May Point, and Vince suggested one could not rule out nearby nesting.