Painted Bunting, Migrants A-plenty and Breeding Activity

The highlight for those in the right place at the right time today was a Painted Bunting, found - very appropriately by ear - by Michael O'Brien as he was leading his Birding By Ear workshop this morning. Unfortunately, the bird chose to lurk at private backyard feeders most of the time and we are very mindful of the tolerance of our neighbors close to the Northwood Center who put up with a lot from us birders, peering into bushes with our optics! A group of people were able to view the bird on a couple of occasions during the course of the morning but there were no further reports later in the day, though it may still be in the area.

A handful of people managed to get this morning's Painted Bunting near the Northwood Center. Typically for an over-shooting spring migrant, the bird was a first-summer male, looking rather green with a suggestion of some blue showing through. [Photo by Tony Leukering]

Migration continued a-pace all over Cape May today with reports of a plethora of great birds. No big movement as yet, but just lots of nice birds. Our Field Trip Reports section will give an indication of what is being seen by our sharp-eyed band of Associate Naturalists and Field Assistants, including some great birding up around Belleplain State Forest. The north of the county doesn't feature so much in our updates during the migration season, as there is so much going on at Cape May Point, but there is certainly plenty in the woodlands and marshes up there to keep everyone happy - check out the latest sightings here.

Care should, of course, be taken when viewing breeding birds, especially during the early nest-building and egg-laying stages, but quiet, solitary birding in woodland areas often produces some of the best wildlife experiences. It's easy to forget how quickly in-coming summer migrants get down to breeding duties - this ovenbird popped up right in front of me beside a well-walked trail, while Eastern Bluebirds are already close to fledging their first brood. [Photo by Mike Crewe]

A Mississippi Kite again toyed with people's emotions around Cape May Point; this is a difficult bird to pin down if you're just visiting for the day, but my suggestion would be to hang out at the east end of Stevens Street, overlooking the Rea Farm (please park clear of the road) from 10AM onwards and keep your fingers crossed and your eyes peeled!

Cape May Birding Hotline 5-7-2011

Hotline: Cape May Birding Hotline
To Report: call (609) 884-2736, or email sightingsATbirdcapemay.org
Coverage: Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic Counties , NJ
Compiler: David Lord, Cape May Bird Observatory
URL: http://www.njaudubon.org ; http://www.birdcapemay.org

This is the Cape May Birding Hotline, a service of New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory. This week's message was prepared on Saturday, May 07, 2011. Highlights this week include sightings of ANHINGA, PAINTED BUNTING, CURLEW SANDPIPPER, WHITE-WINGED DOVE, SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER, ICELAND GULL, GLAUCOUS GULL, STILT SANDPIPER, plus first of Spring arrivals of CERULEAN WARBLER, SUMMER TANAGER, COMMON NIGHTHAWK, KENTUCKY WARBLER, MISSISSIPPI KITE, LEAST BITTERN

An ANHINGA was briefly glimpsed circling Cape May Point on Saturday, April 30th, 2011.

A PAINTED BUNTING was observed singing west of the Northwood Center in Cape May Point on Saturday, May 7th, 2011.

A basic plumage CURLEW SANDPIPER was reported from Heislerville WMA on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011.

A WHITE-WINGED DOVE was located in a private yard in West Cape May on Friday, April 29th, 2011.

A SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER was last observed from Cape May Point State Park on Saturday, April 30th, 2011.

A first-year ICELAND GULL and a first year GLAUCOUS GULL were seen from the east path of the South Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge (Meadows) on Monday, May 2nd, 2011.

A STILT SANDPIPER was located at the Meadows on Sunday, May 1st, 2011.

The following are first of spring arrivals for 2011: CERULEAN WARBLER, 4/30; SUMMER TANAGER, 5/1; COMMON NIGHTHAWK, SUMMER TANAGER, 5/3; KENTUCKY WARBLER, 5/5; CANADA WARBLER, MISSISSIPPI KITE, LEAST BITTERN, 5/6


-For up-to-the-minute Cape May sightings information, photos and downloadable birding maps and checklist of Cape May, visit www.birdcapemay.org . Follow rarity sightings, many spring arrivals, and spectacles on www.twitter.com/CMBObirds -


ANNOUNCEMENTS:

******CMBO SPRING HOURS are as follows: Northwood Center on East Lake Drive in Cape May Point is daily, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Center for Research and Education on Rt. 47 in Goshen is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:30am to 4:30pm; closed Sundays and Mondays. ******

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!

Migration Is Evident Everywhere!

It seems that wherever you go in Cape May at the moment, migration is in full swing; parties of Glossy Ibises drifted across Route 47 as I drove up to Goshen yesterday and this morning at Sunset Beach saw many flocks of Dunlins, Short-billed Dowitchers and Black-bellied Plovers moving out of the bay. Other gossip came from the lips of visiting birders; a fabulous male Black-throated Blue Warbler in a hotel garden in the center of town; a Cattle Egret on a puddle along New England Road; Least Bittern and Virginia Rail calling in The Meadows. Birds everywhere! Today's highlights included two Mississippi Kites wandering the point mid-morning, the Glaucous Gull continues on South Cape May Beach and Higbee's Beach is starting to produce the goods on early morning walks again, with the likes of Baltimore Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Black-throated Green Warbler and both Scarlet and Summer Tanagers seen today. If you're coming down, bring your bug spray - they're not unbearable, but they are around!

Double-crested Cormorant from point north

Yesterday morning (3 May), Michael O'Brien, Louise Zemaitis, and I had a late breakfast at the Sunset Grill at Sunset Beach. I was scanning through the Double-crested Cormorants perched on the Concrete Ship when I noticed the rightmost bird was wearing a somewhat-odd plumage, so I looked at it more closely. At that point, I noticed a big patch of reddish-orange on the leg and told Michael and Louise that the cormorant was color-banded! Off and on over the next hour, Michael and I ogled the bird through the scope at 50x. Unfortunately, we were looking right at the gap between two iterations of the alphanumeric code on the band, so we had the devil of a time trying to suss the alphanumeric. We eventually decided that it was something like '0E0' (maybe OEO). I took a lot of pictures hoping that I'd be able to suss the code on my computer, but to no avail. I sent a picture of the bird along with my report to the Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) about the bird that afternoon.

Michael and I had discussed whether it was more likely from Lake Ontario or from farther up the East Coast, both options seemed about equally likely to us, or, at least, not of such differing possibility as to make one much more likely than the other. Well, I just got the reply from the BBL in the past half-hour: the bird was banded with color band 0E0 as a nestling by Dr. Susan Elbin in a colony near Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, NYC, NY. Ain't great optics, well, great!!

May At Last!!

It's May at last, the month when we can go out, confident in the knowledge that there will be migrants out there to enjoy! Those faltering days of March and early April are behind us now, the weather is averaging a little warmer each day and the birding hotlines don't stop ringing it seems! There's still a few species not yet in of course - and the heady days of spring falls of migrants are still ahead of us. However, when I wake up now, the local mockingbird has been joined by Orchard Oriole, while Blue Grosbeak and Indigo Bunting will be in the garden any day now. These last three species have been coming in in good numbers this weekend and a scattering of Bobolinks and Summer Tanagers are being reported too.

Red-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos are being increasingly reported in mixed flocks with Northern Parulas, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers and a few Scarlet Tanagers. Villas WMA is proving good for all these birds of late, while Tony Leukering and I had singing Black-throated Green and Nashville Warblers and Acadian Flycatcher there too. A Common Eider at the concrete ship on Friday didn't stay into the weekend and a change in the weather resulted in a drop in tern numbers after Friday had produced two Gull-billed and at least three Black Terns. Saturday warbler arrivals included both Cerulean and Cape May Warblers at Belleplain, while Sunday morninig kicked off with a Yellow-billed Cuckoo at Villas WMA and at least a couple of Black-throated Blue Warbler reports.

A superb, breeding-plumaged male Cape May Warbler at Belleplain State Forest this weekend [photo by Nick Kontonicolas].

The South Cape May Meadows have been worth visiting lately, with Virginia Rails calling on and off and a Stilt Sandpiper there on Sunday. Monday afternoon, Alan Mapes found an Iceland Gull on the beach by the meadows and it was later joined by the itinerant Glaucous Gull that continues to put in erratic appearances.

First-summer Iceland Gull on South Cape May Beach, Monday evening.

Meanwhile, for insomniacs, night migration is proving good at the moment and, as always, is a better way to get a feel for thrush movements in the area. Don Freiday reported a Common Nighthawk over Del Haven this morning and David LaPuma's summary of night movements included plenty of Swainsoin's Thrushes and Veeries. Check out regular shorebird locations right now too - Vince Elia had about 100 Whimbrel at Shellbay Landing off the parkway this morning and a singing Nelson's Sparrow too. Highlight so far today comes from Heislerville, where the season's first Curlew Sandpiper was found by Chris Vogel, on a gravel bar on the west side of the drawn-down lagoon.

Anhinga Video, Photo + a Fly-by Scissor-tail

First off, please take the time to look at Tony's post below regarding eagle migration in Cape May. It's a great read!

Second, please enjoy the video below of this morning's Anhinga over the Point. The usual disclaimers apply, as I took the footage with a simple point-and-shoot camera.



Sam Galick also has a nice photo of the bird, available HERE

In other news, this afternoon's walk at the State Park had a brief look at a fly-by Scissor-tailed Flycatcher along the boardwalk portion of the trail system. The bird was apparently an adult male (same bird as before?) and was flying W/NW. It wasn't re-located.

Bald Eagle migration is ...

... well, lots of things: awesome, incredible, fascinating, one-of-a-kind. That point was driven home to me, if it hadn't already been, by seeing a particular Bald Eagle over Stevens St. in West Cape May this afternoon. Here in Cape May, we like to spout that there's rarely a time in the year that something isn't migrating through the peninsula when, in actuality, we don't even have to rely on the broad spectrum of taxa that violate local air space on their way between points A and B. To prove the point, all we really have to know is Bald Eagles.

In Cape May, virtually any westerly or northerly wind -- particularly northwest -- brings raptors. It doesn't matter if it's October, February, April, or July; here, NW equals raptors. One of the species that is seen at the very beginning of hawk-count season in the fall here is Bald Eagle, as the last of the youngster Florida eagles pass through heading north cross paths with the first of the older Florida eagles on their way south for the breeding season. Somewhere near the beginning of the fall hawk count, young northern Bald Eagles start showing up on their way south and the rest of the season probably sees a mix of southbound northern and southern Bald Eagles. The last southbound birds, probably immature southern birds and adult northern birds, pass through in January.

Shortly after the southward migration ceases, north-bound birds start appearing. This year, sometime in early February, I started doing a bit of hawkwatching at various Cape May sites, but particularly at the east end of Stevens St. in West Cape May. From the get-go, I noted Bald Eagles coming from across the bay and past me heading north. I wonder how many a spring hawk count would tally here.

Yesterday, along with others, I counted raptors passing over Stevens St. from 11:30 am to 2:15 pm, recording 12 species of raptor, including that wonderful Swallow-tailed Kite and all three expected falcon species. The flight was dominated by Cooper's (17), Broad-winged (9), and Red-tailed (12) hawks. Nearly all of the Cooper's and Red-taileds were juveniles -- last year's young -- while there was a mix of ages of Broad-winged Hawks, which is to be expected, as the species' local migration timing is considerably later than that of Coop and Red-tail. In that flight were two immature Bald Eagles, both obviously heading north. The wind was southwesterly.

In today's northerly winds, many of those same observers conducted the informal hawk watch from about 10 am to 12:30 pm, seeing roughly equivalent numbers of birds, but of fewer species; no kites or falcons this time. However, we tallied 7 migrant eagles, 1 adult and 6 young birds. For most of the spring -- counting early February as spring for Bald Eagles -- all of the juveniles were obviously worn and, in recent weeks, most of them had initiated their prebasic molt -- many were missing at least one innermost primary on each wing. These are birds that are around one year old produced from northern nests.

At 12:21 pm, when most of us were starting to pack up to look into other birding options, everything changed. The last counted Bald Eagle of the day (pictured above) came in from the south right over our heads and prompted this essay. That is because this bird is obviously in fresh juvenal plumage -- no molt, no wear, and all secondaries nicely pointed. Local juvenile Bald Eagles are still wearing downy white and adult Bald Eagles in the very far north may still be sitting on eggs. Thus, this bird probably became independent of its parents just this month and is the vanguard of the hordes of Florida-produced Bald Eagles that will be moving through Cape May and other eastern localities for the next few months.

So, as you can see, there is rarely a time that at least one Bald Eagle is not moving through Cape May heading in one direction or another.