There's Still a Little Time to Catch the Gannet Show, and Various Birding Updates

[Over one thousand Northern Gannets gathered behind and around the Cape May- Lewes Ferry on April 10, 2016. This happens every year in late March and April; gannets stage in Delaware Bay before migrating onward. Click to enlarge photos.]

I love this time of year.  Every day there's a new bird. Early this morning, I cruised the streets of Cape May Point, NJ with the windows open (an excellent strategy to start your Cape May day, by the way) and discovered that House Wrens had returned in force since I'd been down here three days ago. I then joined my friend Tom Reed at his spring watch from the dune crossover at Coral Avenue, where among many other things we saw a flock of 61 Glossy Ibis come in off the bay, a flock of dowitchers fly into the bay, and many Northern Gannets, although that species' peak has come and gone. There are still plenty of gannets, don't get me wrong, so if you want to catch the show, go to a dune overlook and watch, or get on the ferry.

My personal songbird highlight of the week was a singing Cerulean Warbler on April 18 at Cox Hall Creek WMA. Cerulean is very scarce bird in Cape May, and has declined throughout its range, and I believe this was also the earliest arrival date ever recorded for the species by several days.

Birds happen, and with climate change, they are going to happen more.

Another change factor is simply that bird ranges are not static; the range maps in old field guides in many cases are no longer accurate. Case in point is Common Raven, at least one of which has been haunting the Rio Grande, NJ area for weeks. A best guess is that there is some form of a cell phone tower that this bird (or birds) is using, since that is where the species now mostly nests in northern NJ.

Warblers and butterflies are now readily available in Belleplain State Forest, and shorebirds are filtering into Heislerville and elsewhere. Like I said, I and all naturalists love this time of year. . .which is why CMBO offers such a large suite of spring field trips and events.

[Gannet point-blank from the ferry, April 10, 2016.]

Good Things Come in Threes

We've got a lot going on this spring and I'd like to bring three important items to your attention to ensure you're in the know.  First off, tomorrow and Sunday (4/16-17) we will be holding our 21st Annual Cape May Optics Sale at our Center for Research and Education. If you come, you’ll receive one-on-one service to help you choose the best optics for your budget and needs and our staff and volunteers look forward to serving you. Doors open at 9am; I’ll be there at 8am serving fresh brewed Birds & Beans bird-friendly coffee so come early and secure your spot in line! Personal attention, optics experts, and all profits go to supporting our conservation mission. How can you beat that?

Second, May 14th is the 33rd Annual World Series of Birding. You can get more information at worldseriesofbirding.org but if you’ve been thinking about fielding a team let me tell you this is the year to do it! We’ve recalculated our Limited Geographic Area (read: counties) PAR system to reflect current bird distributions, we’re rolling out the World Series of Birding App for entering your checklist on game day, complete with photo uploads for documentation, and some other great bells and whistles. I know you’re going to love it! We have moved the Photo Big Day to Saturday April 30th from 9am - 9am (the following Sunday) which does two things: first it allows you to compete in both the Photo Big Day and WSB, and it also gives you more shooting hours so Photo Big Day participants can actually cover the entire state in 24-hours. Check out our website for more details, and if you’re interested feel free to contact lillian.armstrong@njaudubon.org for additional information.

Now to my final point.

I remember reading Jack Connor’s Season at the Point: The birds and birders of Cape May back when I was a graduate student at Rutgers University. My friend, and fellow Floridian, Jeff Bouton was featured prominently, and the cast of characters throughout the book were familiar (although only tangentially at the time): Pete Dunne, Vince Elia, Pat and Clay Sutton, Paul Kerlinger, Richard Crossley. At the point of reading the book I didn’t know I’d end up living in Cape May, and certainly didn’t know I’d become the director of CMBO. What I did know, though, was that Cape May was a special place and this book ported me to that world in vivid detail. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. 

The book was published in 1991, some twenty five years ago (hard to believe!). As part of our Cape May Spring Festival this May we have put together a special event to commemorate this milestone. On Saturday May 21 we will be holding a lunch-time panel discussion with many of the historic figures from the landmark book. Jack Connor will lead the panel, and all participants will get the opportunity to ask the questions they’ve accumulated over the last 25 years! So I hope you’ll join us this May for our festival and this special event. Registration is now open at 

https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/tab2.aspx?EventID=1813270

From all of us at New Jersey Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory, we look forward to seeing you in Cape May soon!

The Gannet "Thing" IS On!

[A small part of a flock of over 1,000 Northern  Gannets sitting on Delaware Bay off the mouth of Cox Hall Creek, waiting for the rain to stop so they could resume fishing and migrating. Click to enlarge.]

A flock of over 1,000 Northern Gannets was a nice way to come down from a week in Eilat, Israel, where the Leica Cape May Bird Observatory American Dippers (me, captain Doug Gochfeld, Ben Barkley, and Tom Reed) competed in the Champions of the Flyway event. More on that later. For now. . .there are a LOT of birds migrating through Eilat right now. Like, we saw over 3,500 raptors of ~ 10 species (Steppe Buzzards, Steppe Eagles, Pallid Harriers, Imperial Eagles, Egyptian Vultures. . .) in a half hour of watching in the Eilat mountains.

This would be a very good weekend to ride the Cape May-Lewes Ferry to watch gannets, scoters, and Red-throated Loons.

Game Time: Champions of the Flyway 2016

As I type this it's after noon Eastern Time, which means the sun has set in Eilat, Israel (they are 7 hours ahead of us) and the teams that have assembled in the southern tip of Israel are making final preparations for the kickoff of the 3rd Annual Champions of the Flyway (COTF) bird race. Modeled after New Jersey Audubon's World Series of Birding (WSB), the COTF has established itself as a fantastic event that raises tens-of-thousands of dollars for bird conservation work throughout Europe and the Middle East each year. This year funds are being raised to combat illegal hunting of migratory birds in Greece. So far they have raised over $62,000 and there's still time to raise more! (Click HERE to support the CMBO team)

Scouting North Beach Red Sea at dawn #COTF2016 @cmbobirds #goisrael 5 LT Jaegers while watching Gr. Sand plover pic.twitter.com/ExF0ybgeJ5

— Don Freiday (@FreidayBird) March 27, 2016

For the second year in a row the Cape May Bird Observatory has fielded a team for the event thanks to the generous support of Leica Sport Optics, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), and the Israeli bureau of tourism. Last year the CMBO/Leica American Dippers managed to win the competition with 168 species, only one more than the second-place team and after 24 hours of full-on birding throughout the southern half of the country. This year they hope again to show well during this challenging but very exciting competition. Ultimately the biggest winners will be the birds, and thanks to great supporters of CMBO, our team has also done very well raising over $5,000 for this important cause.

So for those of you who would like to follow along during the competition, there are a few ways to do so. First, follow the hashtag #COTF2016 on Twitter. Most teams are using it and there has been a steady flow of photos and tweets coming through during the last three days of scouting. Also, follow us @cmbobirds on Twitter as we will be posting updates throughout the 24-hour race, and our team will be tagging us in any posts that they tweet out as well. Lastly, keep checking our Facebook page as we will be updating that often as well. The time differential actually makes following along quite comfortable, with the kickoff and ending occurring right after the work day. Expect lots of tweets and posts when you wake up tomorrow, as much of the daytime birding occurs during our night, but tomorrow morning will also be some of the final hours of daylight for the teams so the action during our breakfast could be quite hot! Use the information below to help you follow along and let's give one last big shout out to our favorite COTF team - GO AMERICAN DIPPERS!!!

Some times to keep track of (Eastern Time):

• 5:00pm Monday March 28th = 12:00am Tuesday March 29th in Israel, the moment when Champions of the Flyway 2016 begins

• 11:31pm Monday March 28 = 6:31am Tuesday March 29th in Israel, or Sunrise in Eilat

• 11:57am Tuesday March 29th = 6:57pm Tuesday in Israel, or Sunset in Eilat

• 5:00pm Tuesday March 29th = 12:00 midnight on Tuesday in Israel, Champions of the Flyway 2016 officially ends

White-crowned Wheatear #Leica #birding #Israel
Photo: Jeff Bouton pic.twitter.com/J4Rj47Gqn8

— Leica Birding (@LeicaBirding) March 28, 2016

Cheers,

David La Puma
Director, NJ Audubon's Cape May Bird Observatory

The Spring 2016 Kestrel Express is Now Available Online

The spring 2016 Kestrel Express, CMBO's quarterly publication listing the programs, field trips, workshops, and tours we offer, is now online. We hope to see you in Cape May!

Island Eagle

You know it's going to be a good day when you go over the West Cape May Bridge, glance east, and see this. Undoubtedly the male of the local pair (the female is on eggs).

Every year now CMBO hawk counters have to learn how to tell "our" adult Bald Eagles from the many migrants. Last season, we counted 408 Bald Eagles migrating through Cape May.

Cape May Birding Conditions and Predictions

[This Pine Warbler, a singing male, was an arrival on the early side this morning, March 8, 2016, at Cox Hall Creek WMA, Villas, NJ, just north of the big lake there. Click to enlarge all photos.]

What a great time of year. Every day we can anticipate some new arrival, whether rare or common. Today's was the Pine Warbler pictured above. The PIWA was more or less on time, especially given the weather conditions: warm, west-southwest winds for the next few days are great for early arrivals, including swallows and special birds like Cave Swallow or Swallow-tailed Kite.

Another condition for the next day or two that should be exploited is the new moon tide, which is today, but the tides will be greater than normal for the next couple days. Tidal height is greatest with the new and full moons because the sun and the moon are in a line with the earth; thus both the sun and moon exert gravitational pull in the same direction. For example, at Fishing Creek on Delaware Bay (very near "famous" Miami Beach at the west end of Miami Avenue in the Villas,) tidal height today is forecast to max at 6.21 feet. The "neap" tide with the first quarter moon (which many people mistakenly call a half moon because that is what it looks like)March 15 will peak at 5.8 feet. Tides are heavily influenced by wind, with east winds holding water in the bays. The current westerlies will not do this.

Exceptionally high tides are a good time to look for rails (if any survived the winter) and salt sparrows along marsh edges. Nummy Island and Jake's Landing are two places to consider. Another phenomenon is that wintering shorebirds like Dunlin, Sanderlings, Black-bellied Plovers, and even a few Red Knots are forced to roost on jetties at high tide. The south jetty at the Cape May ferry terminal is particularly good for this, since it often hosts the thousands of shorebirds that winter on the mudflats of lower Delaware Bay. Look for Purple Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, and perhaps a Western Sandpiper or two as well.

[These Ruddy Turnstones, Sanderlings, and Dunlin were on a jetty in North Cape May today.]

[There were fewer shorebirds on the south jetty of the Cape May ferry terminal than I expected this morning, only a few hundred. This was probably the reason why. . .]

We are at or near the peak of duck migration, more on that on my blog. The South Cape May Meadows, Cape May Point State Park, Heislerville and Bivalve in Cumberland County, and Mannington Marsh in Salem County are all great places to enjoy this phenomenon.

[Great Egret on Lily Lake this morning. This could be a survivor of the winter or a new arrival.]

Finally, herons and egrets will begin trickling in this month and next, adding their splendor to a splendid season.