Some You Win, Some You Lose - 2

OK, so you know where to be at Noon on a Sunday in August; where should you be at Noon on a Saturday in August? Well, it turns out that one of our newest volunteer naturalist recruits, Tom Baxter knew. Tom was onboard The Osprey working as the trip naturalist when he spotted a bird that really didn't look quite right for what you would normally expect to see sitting on a channel marker in the middle of Jarvis Sound. Pretty soon, Tom realized he was looking at a Brown Booby! And a shiny adult at that!!

Jarvis Sound is the first open body of water in the back bays north of Ocean Drive. The bird can be scoped from Two-mile Landing, but please observe on-site signs there as areas that were once open to access are now out of bounds - please don't upset the locals! For even better views though, you can head out to within 20 feet of the bird on The Osprey. Call Captain Bob Luberman on 609-898-3500 for details of sailings. We all missed the Manx Shearwater, but this time we got lucky and hopefully the Brown Booby will hang around at least for the weekend.

Also on the backbays today were a single Marbled Godwit, Tricolored Heron, several Yellow-crowned Night Herons and a good range of the regular shorebirds.

Brown Booby, Jarvis Sound, Cape May. Though not the first for Cape May County, this is certainly the first "mass twitchable" Brown Booby here so let's hope it stays a while for folks to enjoy as they did the Ivory Gull. [Photos by Mike Crewe]