Reminder: Vote Yes on NJ Question # 1 + Golden Eagle

The imm. male Golden Eagle seen and later banded in Cape May today will have fewer places to hunt in coming years if NJ public question #1 does not pass. Please vote yes on Tuesday - and why not email every person in your address book asking them to vote, too? There is foolish opposition to passing this question - check the NJ Keep it Green web site for info about question one, which if passed will provide $400 million to fund open space. [Many readers are not from NJ, but please bear with us, this is hugely important for conserving the Cape May bird life we all treasure (and email your NJ friends!). It's a Yellow-rumped Warbler reading the sign].

Back to the bird news. Winds are forecast to be northwest 5-10 mph tomorrow morning, increasing as the day wears on. Melissa Roach, CMBO's seasoned interpretive naturalist, who is now the second woman to count hawks from the platform in Cape May (swing counting two days a week), should have a good flight - perhaps another Golden, or a Goshawk, or Rough-legged, and almost certainly good numbers of buteos and accipters.

Cave Swallow, Meadows Report, and Birds out of Context

[Bird out of context, number 1 - the male Black Scoter in the east pool at the meadows (!) this morning shakes off his nerves after a Peregrine made a pass. Photo by Don Freiday, click to enlarge all photos.]

The first official solid Cave Swallow of fall was reported from the hawk watch platform this morning by Vince Elia. Doug Gochfeld reported a Red-necked Grebe from the Avalon Seawatch this morning.

There were a lot of birds moving, and newly in, at the South Cape May Meadows a.k.a. TNC Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge this morning. Particularly notable were the increased numbers of White-throated Sparrows in the bayberry thickets, as well as dozens of Eastern Bluebirds migrating overhead. Parasitic Jaegers offshore, a passing immature Little Blue Heron, and a large quanity and high quality of "duckage" were also highlights. I included the full list at the end of this post - 8o species strong.

[Bird out of context number 2: A Rock Pigeon joined a flock of 20 Killdeer flying around the meadows for quite some time. You could just hear him saying to the raptors, "don't mind me, I'm just a Killdeer, I blend in, see?"]

[It's easy to see why the dark tips on a Little Blue Heron's primaries are so hard to spot when they are not flying. This one entertained the meadows walk this morning.]

[Roger Horn photographed this soaking wet Merlin at Villas WMA yesterday.]

Note that we only have two more Monday meadows walks left this fall. Hurry before the autumn's gone!

Location: South Cape May Meadows
Observation date: 11/2/09
Notes: CMBO Monday meadows walk
Number of species: 80
Snow Goose 2 1 white 1 blue flew by together
Canada Goose 200
Mute Swan 20
Gadwall 90 careful count
American Wigeon 20 careful count
American Black Duck 20 careful count
Mallard 60
Blue-winged Teal 20 careful count
Northern Shoveler 2
Northern Pintail 15 careful count
Green-winged Teal 15
Surf Scoter X
White-winged Scoter 1 offshore not seen by group
Black Scoter X including one adult male in east pool!
Hooded Merganser 1 female
Ruddy Duck 4
Common Loon 2
Pied-billed Grebe 6
Northern Gannet 50
Double-crested Cormorant 300
Great Blue Heron 10
Great Egret 8
Snowy Egret 1
Little Blue Heron 1 juv
Osprey 2
Northern Harrier 5
Sharp-shinned Hawk 15
Cooper's Hawk 3
Merlin 2
Peregrine Falcon 1
American Coot 20
Killdeer 50
Sanderling 100
Pectoral Sandpiper 1
Wilson's Snipe 1
Laughing Gull 1
Ring-billed Gull 25
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 120
Forster's Tern 10
Royal Tern 15
Parasitic Jaeger 2
Rock Pigeon 10
Mourning Dove 5
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Northern Flicker 10
Blue Jay 5
American Crow 20
Fish Crow 2
Tree Swallow 20
Carolina Chickadee 1
Carolina Wren 5
Marsh Wren 1 heard only
Golden-crowned Kinglet 2
Eastern Bluebird 120
American Robin 300
Gray Catbird 1
Northern Mockingbird 1
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 200
American Pipit 30
Yellow-rumped Warbler 25
Blackpoll Warbler 1
Field Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 10
Song Sparrow 20
Swamp Sparrow 20
White-throated Sparrow 50
White-crowned Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 5
Northern Cardinal 5
Red-winged Blackbird 500
Eastern Meadowlark 10
Rusty Blackbird 1
Purple Finch 2
House Finch 10
American Goldfinch 20
House Sparrow 20

Bluebirds, Robins, and Blackbirds, 1 November

As Don noted, I was amazed at the number of birds traveling over Cape May Point at height late this afternoon. I didn't get to the Point until after noon today, but even so, I heard Eastern Bluebirds passing over the entire time I was ogling ducks on Lighthouse Pond, while watching very little in the way of raptor migration from the Hawkwatch platform, and while watching 20 Common Eiders at the jetty off the end of Whilldin Avenue in Cape May Point.

But it wasn't until I was joined at the jetty around 3:30 pm by Tom Reed and Sam Galick that I deigned to pay much specific attention to the flights going over my head. That change was occasioned by a flock of 26 Eastern Bluebirds that flew over us relatively low (relative to the height of the other birds flying over) heading in off the bay and toward the north. That flock moved my focus off the water to the sky and we started noting flocks of blackbirds, some very large flocks of blackbirds, very high coming in off the bay and heading northish. We did have a lower flock of 5 Rusty Blackbirds, but the vast majority of birds way up there were, apparently, Red-winged Blackbirds. Some 3200 Red-winged Blackbirds.

As we could see the blue sky behind the front (and could for most of the day, though it still never advanced on us), I opined that these northbound birds might have been migrating behind the front and caught up with it and passed through it to find themselves over the bay whereupon they headed north to land. Of course, that's just a theory, and one with a few holes, the most obvious being the extreme height at which the birds were passing (I'd suspect that if these birds were trying to reach land after finding themselves over water, they'd be at lower altitudes typical of such birds). Regardless, the phenomenon was thought-provoking.

I then headed to CMBO's Northwood Center and, upon leaving it and opening my car door, I noted that there were A LOT OF BIRDS going over! They were all quite high, but one stream of birds, American Robins, was passing by much lower than were the barely-visible blackbirds. Additionally, the robins were heading south, while the blackbirds were heading (as when viewed from the beach) north. In the 15 minutes that I stood by my car with the door open and with chin somewhere around my navel, I estimated some 4000 American Robins to have passed south. I believe that the robins were in active southbound migration and they may be what's "lighting up" the NEXRAD. The blackbird story is still up in the air (no pun intended, or not much, anyway).

I thought that a better vantage point would give me a better handle on the flight (the parking area at the Northwood Center is just a bit constrained in its skyscape), so headed to the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge, arriving at 4:45 pm. Unfortunately, either the flight was over (or nearly so) or I was now too far east, as I saw only a shimmering south-bound stream of (presumably) robins at one point shortly after arriving in the parking lot. Despite the lack of passerine flight, I decided to stay and hope for owls getting up. While I did find a Great Horned Owl perched on the Osprey platform, it was the only owl that I saw. I also heard two Virginia Rails, though. At 5:45, I called it a day.

Vote Yes on Question One!! Plus Migration is Underway

[The sign says it all, and the warbler undoubtedly would agree - New Jersey public question #1 will provide $400 million in open space funding. Learn more at http://www.njkeepitgreen.org/ . People, we must pass this initiative - please be sure to vote on Tuesday, and encourage all your friends (especially those in NJ) to vote, too. Photo by Don Freiday, click to enlarge.]

Tony Leukering left me a message this evening about large movements of birds, including robins, bluebirds and blackbirds, along the Delaware Bayshore in the late afternoon. I was up in Salem County and didn't see it happening, but NEXRAD is lit up, and northeast winds or no, conditions are good for migration, for moon-watching (for migrants passing in front of the full moon), for listening, and for birding tomorrow.

Eurasian Wigeon: Redux

Text and photographs (both copyrighted) by Tony Leukering

Things are not always what they seem.

Yesterday (31 Oct), while driving north on Lighthouse Avenue from the State Park, I noted the presence of a lot of wigeon on Lighthouse Pond, enough, certainly, to hide a Eurasian Wigeon. So, I stopped to scan through the bird with my binocular. Michael O'Brien, who had left the State Park immediately after me, passed on by for home. Shortly after he got home (some two minutes later), I was calling him to ask him to come check out a female wigeon that I thought was a good candidate for a female Eurasian Wigeon. He kindly came back and provided the opinion that it was just a slightly-odd American Wigeon. So, I started scanning the rest of the flock that I hadn't checked after finding the candidate and almost immediately found an obvious Eurasian Wigeon, though not an adult male. As the bird was almost right in front of the blind on Lighthouse Pond (accessible from inside the Park), we headed back to the park to get closer and try for photos.

I was the first one to the blind and I quickly found a ruddy-headed wigeon that I assumed was the bird that we'd seen from the other side of the pond. I took a few pictures of it at some distance, all the while nigggling thoughts in my head tried to tell me that the bird looked a bit different, particularly looking not as rusty as the bird that we'd seen from across the way. Of course, I was looking at it under different lighting conditions, so over-ruled my brain's right half (or did I over-rule the logical left half?) and decided that it was the same bird. I then lost the thing while waiting for other birders to show up. Right before others arrived, I found the bird again and it looked just as rusty. Enjoyment was had by all and I left happy. Oh, yeah, we also thought that it was an immature male Eurasian Wigeon.

This morning, I got a text from Michael saying that he'd seen the bird better -- or, at least, he'd seen more parts, particularly the upperwing coverts -- and thought that the bird was a female. Cameron Cox (who co-wrote an article on female Eurasian Wigeon in Birding in 2005) arrived a bit later and sent a text message that there were two Eurasian Wigeons on the pond, neither an adult male, with the "second" bird being a bit duller than the bright rusty one I'd found yesterday and, he thought, an immature female.

Of course, all that got me down to look at the ducks on Lighthouse Pond again, and I fairly quickly found both Eurasian Wigeons. Unfortunately, they were on the far side of the pond, so not particularly photographable. I ogled them for a bit and then concentrated on trying to get interesting pictures of the other species of ducks on the pond, despite the horribly overcast skies (the cold front never did clear today, and we had threatening and more-than-threatening rain all day).

However, once I'd seen both birds, my brain (left, I assume) started working on my sightings yesterday. The first thing that I did upon getting home from birding was check my distant pictures of Eurasian Wigeon from yesterday to compare to the much better pictures that I obtained of the "rustier" bird that was close to the blind. When will I listen to that right brain of mine?


(Click on image to see a larger version.)

Comparing the two images -- the duller (distant) bird on the left and the rustier (close) bird on the right -- there is a number of differences between the two birds, but the most obvious one is the scapular patterns of the two birds. The duller bird has thinner and less reddish fringes to the scapulars with the leading edges being particularly narrow and, in some, whitish. The rustier bird, however, has wide and very rusty fringes to all scapulars. Additionally, some of those feathers, particularly the lower scaps, also sport small pale spots in their centers that the duller bird completely lacks.

So, there is still some discussion about the sex of the rustier bird (Cameron holds for an immature male, while Michael votes for female). If the rusty bird is here for the winter, we will be able to solve this one, as, if it's a male, it should molt into basic plumage soon and it will be most obvious at that point.

Wigeon Continues; State Park Birds

[This hatch-year probable male Prairie Warbler brightened the Yellow Trail at Cape May Point State Park. The white split eye-ring makes it a hatch-year (adults have yellow there) and the strong markings make it a likely male. Photo by Don Freiday, click to enlarge.]

The Eurasian Wigeon was still present on Lighthouse Pond at Cape May Point State Park this morning - there is some discussion as to whether it is a bright female or a young male. It is definitely bright enough, warm cinnamon brown on the flanks and head, to be easy to pick out.

I made a point of doing actual counts on the waterfowl at the park. Here are some of the numbers:

Canada Goose 131 actual count
Mute Swan 34 actual count
Gadwall 43 actual count
Eurasian Wigeon 1 young male or bright female
American Wigeon 167 actual count
American Black Duck 1
Mallard 54 actual count
Northern Shoveler 58
Ruddy Duck 29 actual count
Pied-billed Grebe 11 actual count (not technically waterfowl)

Other highlights at the park included Prairie Warbler and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, both late or possibly reverse migrants. Three Blackpolls and a Palm rounded out the non-Yellow-rumped warblers. Raptor movement was minimal, but included a Red-shouldered Hawk, 2 Harriers, and several accipiters. An adult Bald Eagle was hanging around.

Eurasian Wigeon and Western Kingbird

[This Eurasian Wigeon, a young male-type, appeared on Lighthouse Pond at Cape May Point State Park yesterday. Photo by Tony Leukering, click to enlarge.]

[Tony also found this Western Kingbird at the south side of Villas WMA yesterday.]

[Great Egret against lovely fall colors. We'll be aching for a sight like this in a few weeks. . .photo by Tony Leukering, click to enlarge.]

[Ruddy Ducks, Cape May Point State Park, photo by Tony Leukering].

I'm not so thrilled with the revised forecast - it looks like north-northeast winds at 15 mph the next couple days. Who knows - maybe good seawatching plus we have now entered "rarity month."