Cape May Birding Hotline -- August 3rd, 2012

Hotline: Cape May Birding Hotline
To Report: call: (609) 884-2736 or email: coturnicops AT gmail DOT com
Coverage: Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic Counties, NJ
Compiler: Tom Reed

This is the Cape May Birding Hotline, a service of New Jersey Audubon's Cape May Bird Observatory. This week's message was prepared on Friday, August 3, 2012. Included this week are sightings of BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING-DUCK, BRANT, SURF SCOTER, BLACK SCOTER, AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN, BROWN PELICAN, HUDSONIAN GODWIT, MARBLED GODWIT, RED KNOT, WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER, WILSON'S PHALAROPE, ROYAL TERN, SANDWICH TERN, EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE, SEDGE WREN and LARK SPARROW.

The Brigantine Unit of Forsythe NWR remained hot this week, with 1 or 2 BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING-DUCKS continuing through 8/3. Good spots to look for the ducks are from the "dogleg" along the north dike, and in the eastern portion of the Southwest Pool. An AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN appeared on 7/27, and continued through 8/3. It has been spending most of its time in the Northwest Pool. Other miscellaneous reports from "Brig" this week included WILSON'S PHALAROPE (Northwest & Southwest Pools), SEDGE WREN (at beginning of wildlife drive near first "blue goose" sign), and LARK SPARROW (near Leeds Eco-Trail).

Recent highlights from Stone Harbor Point include 2 unseasonal BRANT on 7/31 plus solid numbers and diversity of shorebirds during high tide, with 551 RED KNOTS and a MARBLED GODWIT on 8/3. A WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER was here on 7/29. Three SANDWICH TERNS were present on Champagne Island during a survey on 7/27, along with 114 ROYAL TERNS and 3 BROWN PELICANS.

A fly-by HUDSONIAN GODWIT was seen over Taylor Sound on 7/28, and a MARBLED GODWIT was seen over Cape May Point State Park on 8/1.

5 BLACK SCOTERS were seen from Higbee Beach on the evening of 7/31, and a SURF SCOTER continued at Stone Harbor Point through at least 7/27.

Cape May Point's resident EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES continue to show regularly, with most reports continuing to come from the area of Yale, Whildin and Harvard Avenues.


The Cape May Birding Hotline is a service of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory and details sightings from Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic Counties. Updates are made weekly. Please report sightings of rare or unusual birds to CMBO at 609-884-2736. Sponsorship for this hotline comes from the support of CMBO members and business members, and should you not be a member, we cordially invite you to join. Individual membership is $39 per year; $49 for families. You can call either center to become a member or visit. Become a member in person and you'll receive a FREE gift (in addition to member discounts in the stores).

Good Luck and Good Birding! 

Wonderful Wednesdays!

Wednesdays are really becoming a favorite with me! Our regular weekly walk at the state park is turning up some very nice birds at the moment, with low water levels and plenty of mud on Bunker Pond proving a real attraction to birds. This morning, one of the most exciting sights was a flock of five juvenile Tricolored Herons that dropped into the pond in a tight little bunch. Seeing one of these south of the Cape May Canal is a far from common sight, so five together was a real treat. Another highlight this morning was a Marbled Godwit that whizzed right over our heads and out across the bay, while a juvenile Gull-billed Tern that has been around for a few days now gave us a great display of its insect-catching feeding behavior. Two Pectoral Sandpipers, four Stilt Sandpipers and all the usual little peeps, dowitchers and yellowlegs were present and a bewildering array of tern plumages gave us a chance to think ahead to our tern workshop this coming Saturday (still just about time to book the last few places if you are quick!).

Signs of songbird migration crop up from time to time, though it's still early for most species to be moving yet. An adult female American Redstart paid a brief visit to the Northwood Center feeders yesterday and Yellow Warblers and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are poking around the bushes at the point. Early signs of the annual build-up of Eastern Kingbirds are in evidence now and swallows are certainly massing at a variety of spots now. Talking of which, don't forget the awesome spectacle of Purple Martins that happens in Cumberland County every August. This year there will be naturalists on hand to explain the spectacle to you on August 10th and 11th, plus a fabulous boat trip you can book in on that will get you close to the action (and with our very own Pete Dunne on board!) - call us for more details or to book on the boat trip.

Further afield, Brigantine has its usual early fall build up of great birds, which recently has included two Black-bellied Whistling-ducks, an American White Pelican and an American Moorhen. Much more is doubtless there, awaiting your discovery!

This juvenile Gull-billed Tern has been on Bunker Pond for a few days now, allowing plenty of opportunity to study the strangely gull-like shape and behavior of this species [photo by Mike Crewe].

One of five Tricolored Herons that arrived on Bunker Pond this morning, this individual was a new species for my 'seen on the railing at Bunker Pond' list! Juvenile Tricoloreds differ from adults in having more rufous on the neck and wing coverts [photo by Mike Crewe].

Our Tricolored Heron didn't last long on the railing as this juvenile Little Blue Heron took exception to it being there for some reason. However, a close view of this bird allowed us to see a good identification feature that is not always easy to see in the field. Notice the smudgy dark wing tips on this bird - a feature commonly found in Little Blue Heron but not in the other white egrets found in our area [photo by Mike Crewe].

Despite all the great bird activity, I reckon the greatest natural spectacle at Cape May Point State Park right now is the incredible mass of blooming Swamp Rose Mallow. This species really seems to have benefited from the removal of all the invasive Common Reed at the point and is an amazing sight right now [photo by Mike Crewe].

Close-up of Swamp Rose Mallow flowers. Plants may have pink or white flowers, with or without a red center and often show intermediate characters. The various forms were once vaguely considered to be separate species, but are all lumped under one, very variable species now [photo by Mike Crewe].

Phalaropes and Phalaenas

It was one of those Cape May days today where you just needed to be in the right place at the right time. Luckily, the business meeting I had today was in the afternoon, so I was on hand at the Northwood Center to be able to respond quickly to a report of a Wilson's Phalarope at Bunker Pond in Cape May Point State Park. At first the bird proved elusive but eventually I found it, fast asleep in the edge of the vegetation on the south side of the pond. Shortly it started feeding and put on a great show for Karl Lukens and I. The bird continued to show on and off until the evening so will hopefully still be present on Friday. Late afternoon watchers also got lucky with a juvenile Gull-billed Tern on Bunker Pond, among the masses of other terns there - I also saw my first juvenile Laughing Gull of the year in the state park.

The heat haze today played havoc with the focus and blunted any attempts at real sharp pictures, but the Wilson's Phalarope put on a fair performance for me today. Unlike the other two phalarope species, Wilson's has only slightly lobed toes and spends much more time feeding on land than spinning round in circles on the water. This bird carefully stalked a multitude of tiny flies along the bare edges of the pond [photo by Mke Crewe].

Juvenile Wilson's Phalarope at Bunker Pond today, first reported at 10AM this morning by Chris Takacs. Note the overall very slender appearance, thin, stilt-like bill and olive-yellow legs. This is a rather scarce bird at Cape May Point, so well worth the visit if you want to treat yourself! [Photo by Mike Crewe].

So that's the phalarope - what's the phalaena? Well, Phalaena was an old word that Linnaeus used for all moths when he was classifying insects and I thought I should bring belated attention to the fact that the USA is running its first ever National Moth Week this very week. Wherever you are, chances are there's an event taking place near you to celebrate the amazing abundance and variety of our moths, much maligned and much misunderstood creatures. If you haven't already done so, check out the National Moth Week website for events near you and go and see what all the fuss is about!

It's been a while since Monkey featured on the CMBO blog, but here he is in the thick of it as we work our way through the trap at our first CMBO National Moth Week event, which took place at my house earlier this week [Photo by Megan Crewe].

This dead-leaf mimicking Blind-eyed Sphinx was one of 99 species of moth that we identified and photographed before releasing at our National Moth Week session. In all we totalled 1004 individual moths identified and logged - plus a slew of teeny weenies that just got the better of us! [Photo by Mike Crewe]

One moth of particular interest is this Western Bean Cutworm that was in my moth trap here in Cape May on July 6th and which constitutes the first record for New Jersey as far as we are aware. I noticed that the Cape May County Herald reported one caught at Hammonton in Atlantic County on July 16th, so this species - which is considered a pest species of crops in some areas - seems to be continuing its push to colonize the whole of North America, aided and abetted by crop planting schemes [photo by Mike Crewe].

Cape May Birding Hotline -- July 26th, 2012

Hotline: Cape May Birding Hotline
To Report: call: (609) 884-2736 or email: coturnicops AT gmail DOT com
Coverage: Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic Counties, NJ
Compiler: Tom Reed

This is the Cape May Birding Hotline, a service of New Jersey Audubon's Cape May Bird Observatory. This week's message was prepared on Thursday, July 26, 2012. Included this week are sightings of BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING-DUCK, SURF SCOTER, BLACK SCOTER, LEAST BITTERN, AMERICAN AVOCET, HUDSONIAN GODWIT, RED KNOT, SANDERLING, SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER, WESTERN SANDPIPER, SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER, LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER, GULL-BILLED TERN, BLACK TERN, ROSEATE TERN, SANDWICH TERN, EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE, and SEDGE WREN.

A BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING-DUCK was discovered near the "dogleg" along the north dike at the Brigantine Unit of Forsythe NWR on 7/26. Other recent highlights from Brig include AMERICAN AVOCET and HUDSONIAN GODWIT. Two ROSEATE TERNS were found at nearby North Brigantine Natural Area on 7/22-/23.

A singing SEDGE WREN continued at Tuckahoe WMA this week through 7/25. The bird has been present at the southern end of the driving dike loop. Please note that Sedge Wren is an endangered species in NJ, and that it is illegal to harass this bird or play tapes. Also noted at Tuckahoe WMA recently have been LEAST BITTERN and GULL-BILLED TERN.

A WILSON'S PHALAROPE was found at the South Cape May Meadows on 7/25, and the same or another was seen on Bunker Pond at Cape May Point State Park on 7/26. Also found at Bunker Pond on 7/26 were a juvenile GULL-BILLED TERN and a LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER.

Several thousand shorebirds were counted at Stone Harbor Point during high tide on 7/20, including 1,255 SANDERLING, 1,180 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS, 1,075 SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS, 103 WESTERN SANDPIPERS and 148 RED KNOTS. A SURF SCOTER, 2 BLACK SCOTERS and a BLACK TERN were also noted there that day.

Recent SANDWICH TERN sightings came from Cape May Point State Park on 7/20 and Avalon's 48th Street beach on 7/25.

Cape May Point's resident EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES continue to show regularly, with most reports continuing to come in from the area of Yale, Whildin and Harvard Avenues.

The Cape May Birding Hotline is a service of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory and details sightings from Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic Counties. Updates are made weekly. Please report sightings of rare or unusual birds to CMBO at 609-884-2736. Sponsorship for this hotline comes from the support of CMBO members and business members, and should you not be a member, we cordially invite you to join. Individual membership is $39 per year; $49 for families. You can call either center to become a member or visit. Become a member in person and you'll receive a FREE gift (in addition to member discounts in the stores).

Good Luck and Good Birding!

Come to where the birds are!

Cape May is really starting to buzz with bird activity now. My Wednesday morning walk is my one opportunity a week to get out to the state park and see what's happening there - and there was certainly plenty of action today! At least three Stilt Sandpipers, an Eastern Willet, Spotted Sandpiper, several Short-billed Dowitchers, both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs and the usual peeps were all on Bunker Pond and we had the nice sight of a party of three Solitary Sandpipers flighting right past the lighthouse. The first juvenile Common Tern of the year was on Bunker Pond too, along with several Black Skimmers and a nice mix of herons, egrets and Glossy Ibises. Young birds are very evident around the Plover Ponds right now with lines of Tree Swallows sitting on the rope fences and parties of Purple Martins in the treetops, with most of them being youngsters getting their wings all geared up for the long southward haul. For full lists of the birds being seen on our regular weekly walks, visit our Field Trips Reports via the link at the top of this page.

And why so many swallows gathering here? Well come on down and take a look at the sky - it's full of dragonflies!! Everybody is talking about dragonflies right now, and it's not surprising; from Beach Avenue right across to Sunset Beach, dragonflies are flying in their thousands. Up Washington Mall, all along the beach fronts, even up the Parkway, dragonflies are heading north in huge numbers. So what is happening? These are all migratory species; species that breed in the south then head north once ponds in the hot southern states begin to dry out. The main species at the moment are Swamp Darners - our largest dragonfly here in Cape May County - and Spot-winged Gliders, a reddish-brown species with big, cherry red eyes. Along with them are good numbers of yellowy-brown Wandering Gliders and a few Green Darners with their bright blue abdomens. Most interesting for me was the surprising number of Comet Darners. In my three years here to date, I reckon I have seen about 10 Comet Darners - I saw at least another 20 just today! Comet Darners are fabulous beasts, they are big, with bright apple green thoraxes and brilliant scarlet abdomens and are really inpressive. Three of them spent all afternoon hawking outside my office window but the most annoying thing is, I don't have a photograph of one yet! These beasties seem always to be on the wing and really don't like to hang around for a snapshot.

So what do we think of all these dragonflies - good or bad? Well good of course, because many dragonfly species just love eating mosquitoes! So let's look after them while they are here. They are big and a bit funky-looking but they won 't do you any harm and, just to allay the most common fear, no they won't sting you - they don't have a sting!

Shorebirds a-hopping still

I sneaked out for a little lunchtime foray today and discovered what I had been missing - Bunker Pond is full of birds! With water levels well down now, there is plenty of marginal mud and good feeding habitat for shorebirds and they are certainly finding it to their liking. Most obvious by far were Least Sandpipers - well over 200 of them, busy on all corners of the pond; but what really caught my eye was a rather spiffy (as Tony Leukering would say!) Semipalmated Sandpiper. Why was it so sharp? Well, it was my first juvenile peep of the year. As would be expected, all of the early returning shorebirds are adults, many of them heading back early because their breeding season is over (maybe they didn't find a mate, maybe a high tide washed out a nest, or a jaeger or Arctic Fox caught them unawares). But here was the first juvenile, identifiable by the neat rows of wing coverts clearly on view and not hidden by slightly uneven-looking scapulars. A sure sign that birds really are heading south from the Arctic now. Bunker pond held much else to enjoy too: 15 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 12 Short-billed Dowitchers, three Semipalmated Plovers, five Lesser Yellowlegs and a Pectoral Sandpiper were all there to be enjoyed, as well as Black Skimmers, a Ring-billed Gull and an assortment of Common and Forster's Terns in all manner of confusing plumages!

Recent CMBO walks continue to get good counts of shorebirds at the South Cape May Meadows too - in particular, you might try our evening sunset walks there as migrant Virginia Rails are starting to appear now. The South Cape May Beach still has late broods of Least Terns and up to 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls to enjoy.

Small numbers of Pectoral Sandpipers are making their way through Cape May Point [Photo by Karl Lukens].

It's prime time for Sandwich Terns at Cape May now - this bird was on Bunker Pond on 17th [photo by Karl Lukens].

Warblers - in July!!

I guess most people think of September when they think of warbler movements through Cape May. And those people would be correct of course. But it may come as a surprise to most to hear that warbler movements have already started at Cape May Point. Scott Whittle texted last Saturday that Yellow Warblers were calling over the point and this was certainly the case on our state park walk this morning too. Both Yellow Warblers and Bobolinks have been moving in small numbers these past few days, but the arrival of these colorful waifs was even more apparent last thing this afternoon when two Yellow Warblers, a Prairie Warbler and an American Redstart were bobbing around the birdbaths at the Northwood Center - all new arrivals during the course of the day.

Cape May Point State Park was certainly producing some great birding this morning, especially around Bunker Pond. Solitary, Stilt, six Pectoral and assorted Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plover, two Willets, 12 Killdeers and plenty of Short-billed Dowitchers and Lesser Yellowlegs, all there to be studied at close range. Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons are increasing in number and Glossy Ibises and Black-crowned Night Herons were seen this morning too. Eight Royal Terns and a Lesser Black-backed Gull on the beach all added to the variety - the birds are here!

Signs of warbler movements can even be apparent up in Belleplain State Forest. This male Hooded Warbler fed close to me for several minutes and, though this species breeds in Belleplain, this bird was in an area that I know well and have not seen this species in before. Nearby, I also ran across a feeding party of several Pine Warblers, Black-and-white Warbler and an American Redstart [photo by Mike Crewe].