Hawks All Day, Some Landbird Additions

[It may be difficult to look down when at the hawk watch platform, but it's worth it from time to time. You might find a White-crowned Sparrow, like this one photographed by Karl Lukens. Today there were two Nashville Warblers entertaining everyone at the end of the day in the bushes, and a couple Dark-eyed Juncos, too. Click to enlarge.]

The hawk flight continued throughout the day, with oohs and ahhs from triple simultaneous Bald Eagles, several adult male Northern Harriers, kettles of Broad-wingeds (Doug counted over 200), and plenty of Peregrines.

A Common Moorhen wandered out onto the pond, and the coots and Pied-billed Grebe continued. A Red-shouldered Hawk, my first of fall, showed up at the end of the day.

Rosie Widmer had a Lark Sparrow at the Magnesite Plant this morning, and there was a Connecticut Warbler at Higbee this morning in the hedge between the second and third fields.

We've got a west wind going to south tonight, not exactly the best thing for prompting overnight migration. I'd go birding anyway, in fact I am, since I'll be leading the Friday Higbee Beach walk. Another cold front is forecast for overnight Friday-Saturday, so Saturday-Sunday have potential for good migration.

Some folks have asked why hawk numbers have not been consistently updated on View from the Field on this web site, and on hawkcount.org. Hawkcount.org had some problems for a few days, and we've had internet challenges as well. Hopefully all will be cleared up in the next couple days. In the meantime, we'll be sure to provide hawk watch highlights here.

It's happening out there

"Are you at leisure today, Mark?" Mark Garland leaned over the hawk watch platform railing and replied, "I have about 12 hours of office work to do today, but it's October 8 and northwest 10 to 15."

My sentiments exactly. There are just birds all over, with raptors taking center stage: kettles of Broad-winged Hawks, plenty of accipiters, Ospreys sailing through. My CMBO Bird Walk for All People finished 45 minutes late because there was too much to look at - I posted the full list from that below. My sense was the state park is again holding warblers, so perhaps more birds and more species will be located as the day wears on.

Higbee was good - Mike Crewe told me he and Megan found nice birds at the back of the third field, including two Blackburnian Warblers, Black-throated Green Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, and White-crowned Sparrow. Vince Elia found a Gray-cheeked Thrush and an American Woodcock, and he and Virginia Rettig had good little flocks of warblers passing in the first field.

The CMBO Hidden Valley walk found a Connecticut Warbler, seen by part of the group, plus Scarlet Tanager and good raptors.

[Today would be the day to learn to tell Cooper's Hawk from Sharp-shinned Hawk - or you can attend one of our free hawk i.d. workshops every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in October (except during the CMBO autumn weekend, October 23-25). These begin at 10:30 in the classroom at the state park, and feature photographs from the best raptor photographers around, including, here, Jerry Liguori's work. In this image, CMBO Interpretive Naturalist Ari Waldstein explains Cooper's Hawk to the crowd.]

Location: Cape May Point SP
Observation date: 10/8/09
Number of species: 62
Canada Goose 40
Mute Swan 10
American Wigeon 4
Mallard 15
Northern Pintail 4
Green-winged Teal 2
Pied-billed Grebe 2
Double-crested Cormorant 50
Great Blue Heron 8
Great Egret 1
Black-crowned Night-Heron 5
Turkey Vulture 20
Osprey 8
Northern Harrier 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 100
Cooper's Hawk 20
Broad-winged Hawk 30
Red-tailed Hawk 2
American Kestrel 1
Merlin 5
American Coot 9
Killdeer 30
Laughing Gull X
Ring-billed Gull X
Herring Gull X
Great Black-backed Gull X
Rock Pigeon 2
Mourning Dove 10
Chimney Swift 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 10
Blue Jay 40
Fish Crow 50
Tree Swallow 100
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 1
Carolina Chickadee 5
Carolina Wren 3
Golden-crowned Kinglet 5
American Robin 5
Gray Catbird 3
Northern Mockingbird 3
Brown Thrasher 2
European Starling 20
Yellow Warbler 1
Cape May Warbler 1 (leader only)
Yellow-rumped Warbler 40
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Pine Warbler 3
Palm Warbler 15
Blackpoll Warbler 2
Common Yellowthroat 5
Eastern Towhee 1
Swamp Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 2
Indigo Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird 50
Common Grackle 1
House Finch 3
American Goldfinch 50
House Sparrow 10

Common Ground-dove Photo; Another Windy Day; Swainson's on the Way?

[Third NJ record Common Ground-dove, photographed by Derek Moore on October 6, 2009 at Nummy Island, south of Stone Harbor in Cape May County. Bob Abrams and Joan Boudreau also saw bird, but it was found by two others, names unknown. If anyone knows who originally found the bird, please contact CMBO so they can get credit in print. Click to enlarge]

Oh where, oh where is the ground-dove now,
Oh where, oh where can it be?

I know some people looked for the ground-dove yesterday, with no success as far as we've heard.

A very few birds were flying in the wind last night - Michael reported 0.3 calls per minute. I'm working on a calls-per-minute scale to indicate light through heavy migration, but 0.3 is on the light side of light.

Scott Whittle tells me there is a juvenile Swainson's Hawk being seen in NY, as of yesterday. That bird could easily make it to Cape May today if decides to go, and I really doubt it is going to fight its way inland against the forecast 15-25 mph northwest winds. Other raptors migrating in the east are going to be pushed to the coast, so today could be very good on the hawk watch.


[Fleet flicker flying, fleeing fast falcons. . .photo by Tony Leukering, click to enlarge. It's a male, note the black mustache. Female Northern Flickers are plain-faced.]

Peregrines on the deck

Wed. 10-07-09
In case you were not aware it is a bit windy today, gusts of 35+ from time to time. We have had Cooper's Hawks, Merlins and Peregrines at eye level today seeming to be just playing in the blustery conditions. The numbers are not going to be staggering but the wows from the wind battered crowd on the platform will not be soon forgotten. Perhaps this will entice others to make it out for the afternoon or tomorrow when conditions look promising. WNW winds 10-20. Maybe you can just sail down.

Two Mile Beach Report

The cold front's passed through, but the wind is howling out of the west. A Parasitic Jaeger pumped by the state park this morning, pre-front and not terribly far offshore, while we took shelter in the pavilion next to the food trailer from the rain at the frontal boundary.

The Two-mile Beach Unit of the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, off Ocean Drive just south of the Wildwoods, is one good pick for the strong west wind days we sometimes have (like today and tomorrow). Two Mile gets a mix of birds - yesterday's CMBO walk garnered just under 60 species. Plus, west wind puts birds on the coast, the ocean lays down a little, and you can find shelter on the ocean side of the dune. Why, it's the sort of place a ground-dove could show up. . . there have been no further reports of that bird so far.

Chuck and MJ Slugg reported finding several Tri-colored and Little Blue Herons in the Two-mile vicinity yesterday, and also noted that the new board walk trail to the coast guard ponds gives a glare-free view. As duck migration kicks in, this is going to be a good spot to check. Doug nearly broke the Avalon Seawatch single day Northern Pintail record yesterday, with over 900 if I remember correctly, so it's kicking in now.

Leucistic Osprey at Brig Last Summer

It seems almost certain that the migrating leucistic Osprey seen in Cape May was the same one as seen and photographed by several observers at Brigantine, a.k.a. Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, last summer:

[Leucistic Osprey at Brigantine September 29, 2009. Photo by Mike Crewe. Note that the bird is banded.]

[Leucistic Osprey at Brig August 29, photo by Kevin Inman.]

I also learned that Harvey Tomlinson photographed this bird on July 12, and others saw it at Brig over the summer. We're trying to find out where and when it was banded.

Black-throated Green Warbler foraging

Text and photographs (all copyrighted) by Tony Leukering

A nicely cooperative immature male Black-throated Green Warbler in a cherry on the north side of the Hawkwatch platform on the 6th provided a great opportunity to study (and photograph) the typical foraging behavior of the species. As the genus Dendroica is so diverse but is of a recent and closely inter-related radiation of species, it is a great group in which to study how foraging behaviors differ among the species of such groups. Many birders pay little attention to such, but foraging style and behavior are useful clues to identification. Though not of the genus Dendroica, Worm-eating Warbler is a great example of a distinctive foraging style, as it is a dead-leaf specialist -- foraging for arthropods primarily among clusters of dead-but-still-attached leaves.

The various members of Dendroica have varying specialializations -- or not -- in types of trees, particularly in the conifer vs. hardwood dichotomy, but some also prefer to forage in species of trees with smaller leaves vs. those with larger leaves (as in the useful foraging-strategy difference between Philadelphia and Red-eyed vireos). Some are more aerial, capturing prey flushed into the air, and some are more restricted to gleaning from leaf surfaces. Among the gleaners some forage primarily on the upper surfaces of leaves, some on the lower surfaces.

If one watches a Black-throated Green Warbler for any length of time, one should note that it spends a lot of time perched and looking upward. That is because the species has a strong tendency to glean the lower surfaces of leaves and there's no better way to scan such than to look up from below those leaves. Yesterday's B-t Green did just that. I captured pictures of that behavior a number of times, and provide a couple of those pictures below.