A Rent In The Space-Time Continuum!

All this high-tech that flies around cyberspace is all very well until the Human element gets added in - and by that I mean me!! With the powers of modern technology, we can talk to someone instantly on the other side of the world and get split second updates on the very whereabouts of a good bird long before we ever clap eyes on it. But if you're a bit borderline as far as the young, hip hop and trendy world of instant messaging and needing to know what your best friend had for breakfast before they've cleaned the plate is concerned, you can get a bit turned around in the immediacy of it all and start to wonder whether time isn't just coming in random pockets (Rimmer and Lister would know what I'm talking about!).

What am I waffling about? Well, I got in to the office this morning afer a day off and downloaded the usual abundance of emails that await me on a Tuesday, among which were proofs for the next Kestrel Express. So I phone Joan Snider who does a great job putting this together for us - only to discover that she is based in Arizona and not in New Jersey at all!! So there's my first issue as Joan would really rather still be in  bed! Anyway, whilst on the phone to Joan, I glanced out of the window and there, literally 12 feet from my face (I measured it with the camera autofocus (probably another weird space-time-distance related thing!), was a storming adult male Prothonotary Warbler - actually closer to me than my camera was! So now Joan, in Arizona, knows about it before the people in the next room!

The bird disappeared and I got no photos, so on with the emails. Well, the next topsy-turvy scenario was the discovery of two emails, sent the day before, of photos of the very same bird. So now I know that a bird was present yesterday and have seen photos of it - but not before I saw it myself today!! I gotta go have a lie down in a darkened room and work this all out.

By the way, it may not be unconnected that there is actually a poster of Albert Einstein over Gail Stern's desk - about the same distance away from me as the Prothonotary Warbler had been....

Chip and Kim Bauer get the credit for finding this handsome male Prothonotary Warbler at the Northwood Center on Monday and it continues today. Whilst Chip never quite got the ideal shot as the bird dipped around behind branches and other objects, Beth Polvino happened to chance across the bird herself later on Monday and sent me this great shot.

Another great shot from Beth Polvino of a breeding-plumaged male Palm Warbler. Note the chestnut cap. Birds with yellow on all underparts like this one are from the eastern population; western birds have the yellow more restricted.

Other updates: Monday saw a good movement of Willets with Tony Leukering reporting 79 passing St Peter's in 80 minutes in the morning. Other highlights on Monday included an Orchard Oriole at Lake Lily and a Broad-winged Hawk reported at Cape May Court House.

So far today, the Audubon's Warbler has been seen again, this time around the red trail in Cape May Point State Park, while Belleplain observers reported both Wood Thrush and Hooded Warbler this morning.