The Birds of New Jersey - and Birds at Cape May

The Birds of New Jersey is in the CMBO stores now!! The much-awaited new publication by Bill Boyle (with Kevin Karlson as Photographic Editor) is out and is a must-buy for anyone with an interest in the birds of the Garden State. Species texts are short, but there's a lot of information in there. Distribution maps are large and easy to interpret - but it's the great collection of photos that will really grab your eye first! All those amazing shots of outrageous birds that I missed because I wasn't living here then and people never stop going on about them? Well, now I have pictures of them to help me miss them even more!!

Come get your copy now - and don't forget to get it signed at the Cape Maygration festival!

It's been an exciting morning at Cape May, and setting up to continue into the weekend. Stormy weather yesterday seemed to stir things up and it's been an interesting day today. Not a day of masses of birds, but a day certainly of firsts-for-the-year for many! The CMBO Higbee's Beach walk had two Yellow-breasted Chats in song, two Black-billed Cuckoos and a fabulous Red-headed Woodpecker. A morning watch at the point provided an amazing seven Red-headed Woodpeckers skirting round the point - the highlight of a watch that also produced good numbers of Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks and American Goldfinches heading in off the bay. Two Gull-billed Terns, two Black Terns, two Parasitic Jaegers and a small shorebird passage (that included several Purple Sandpipers) made for an action-packed morning. Lunchtime, Scott Whittle deservedly stole the limelight with a Swallow-tailed Kite over the state park. It hawked insects around the island for less than an hour before disappearing south behind houses at the point and presumably heading off across the bay.

OK, it's not up to the standard of Kevin's American Kestrel above, but you get the idea! Swallow-tailed Kite over Cape May Point today [photo by Mike Crewe].

One of two Black-billed Cuckoos at Higbee's Beach this morning - missed the earliest Cape May date by two days! [Photo by Karl Lukens]

Red-headed Woodpecker - a scarce bird here now so any picture is better than none (and I got none!) [photo by Karl Lukens].