"Common" Birds

[Why does the heron cross the road? To find a patch of unfrozen water. Great Blues in Heislerville this afternoon. Click to enlarge photos.]

Well, if you care about your year list, you are about out of time. . .eBird says 328 species were found in Cape May County in 2010, and that list does not yet include the Varied Thrush or Black-capped Chickadee. Which two, by the way, lift the county all-time cumulative list to 422.

With a tiny bit of time yesterday, and slightly more today, I wondered around the bayshore looking for. . .what else, birds.

[Mingling with the commoners: this hen Northern Pintail seems bent on wintering with the Mallards on"Lake Champlain," the little pond in the Villas on Champlain Avenue. She was there before I left for Florida, and was still there yesterday.]

[Northern Harriers were noticeably thin at places like Jake's Landing and Heislerville, probably thanks to the snow cover, but the proportion of "Gray Ghosts" was quite high, about even numbers with brown birds. This one was at Jake's today. Click to enlarge.]