Warblermania!

I know that I have used the word "FINALLY" in a few posts this year, but really - FINALLY!  This week has been pretty birdy.  Here is my list from this morning. No photos yet, but I wanted to get this posted in case you didn't realize that you should be out birding this week :-)  Get thee out of doors.

John Heinz NWR--impoundment (Philadelphia Co.), Philadelphia, US-PA May 16, 2013 7:00 AM - 8:15 AM

Protocol: Traveling

0.5 mile(s)

Comments:     warblermania

37 species

Wood Duck  2

Cooper's Hawk  1

Chimney Swift  3

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1

Eastern Wood-Pewee  1

Acadian Flycatcher  1

Great Crested Flycatcher  1

Eastern Kingbird  2

Warbling Vireo  2

Barn Swallow  2

Carolina Chickadee  1

House Wren  1

Carolina Wren  2

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  3

Veery  1

Wood Thrush  1

American Robin  5

Gray Catbird  8

Ovenbird  3

Blue-winged Warbler  1

Black-and-white Warbler  4

Nashville Warbler  1

Common Yellowthroat  1

American Redstart  9

Northern Parula  3

Magnolia Warbler  4

Blackburnian Warbler  1

Yellow Warbler  7

Chestnut-sided Warbler  2

Blackpoll Warbler  8

Black-throated Blue Warbler  2

Yellow-rumped Warbler  6

Canada Warbler  2     2 birds seen chasing each other and then perched in separate trees.  amazing

Scarlet Tanager  1

Northern Cardinal  1

Red-winged Blackbird  4

Baltimore Oriole  2

World Series of Birding - 2013

This is our 3rd year doing the World Series of Birding (WSB) - the one day contest to see as many bird species as possible in New Jersey in order to raise money for conservation charity. 

I spent a few days scouting for the Big Day with my team plus with the DVOC Loons. Friday was awesome! We saw a ton of birds including 5 "life birds" like Red Phalarope and Gray-cheeked Thrush plus a dozen warblers and other "First of Year" birds too. We also helped the Loons stake out a Barn Owl. 

Scouting at Higbee

We were all set to top last year's total of 144 birds. We went to bed early in anticipation of starting our big day at 2:30 AM.  Imagine how disappointed we were when it started to rain just as we left.

Early morning

You would assume that we would improve our total each year. You know, learn something new that would help us see more birds or improve our route through Cape May county or pin down locations of some of the birds that we should "get".  Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't care about the preparation and knowledge that we have accumulated over the past 3 years.  The one thing that we didn't really have a plan for was rain.  We planned for mosquitoes by taping screens to the car windows.  We didn't plan on having to drive through knee deep puddles to retrieve the screen after it was pulled off the car by an attack sticker bush.

Screen retrieval

 We planned to use our iPhones to look up info on birds and directions to locations.  We didn't plan to use them to look up Doppler.  We didn't plan on wearing rain gear and having to find birds through downpours.  This is one shot of our day.  The blue dot is us, the green is rain. The yellow is heavy rain. The red is severe rain. . .

There were a few breaks in the weather.

Nerds and dogs birding Cox Hall Creek

 But then the rain started again and chased us back to the car for cover. We even had to wait for the rain to slow down to dash to the bathroom at the Visitor Center.

Binoculars are no use in torrential rain

 If it seems like I'm complaining - it's because I am. We do this for our personal fun and also to help raise money for conservation charities.  Having higher total birds theoretically means more funds raised, but also means that we are getting better at this stuff. 

We ended the day as it began - in the dark with threatening skies and rain.  We ended with 3 new birds at the Meadows - Woodcock, Virginia Rail and Green-winged Teal which brought the total for the day to 136 which is 6 fewer than last year but 36 more that I thought we would get while sitting in the car waiting out the rain. 

Clouds over the Meadows at dusk

We should have had more birds this year.  We should have done better.  We did have a lot of laughs despite the rain. We will do better next year.  I hope you pledge something.  Let me know if you want to contribute something to NJ Audubon or DVOC youth.

FINALLY!

We FINALLY had a great spring migration day today. I have been in Cape May all week scouting for World Series - which is tomorrow - and seeing a big fat nothing.  Today, we spent almost 4 hours at Higbee beach ooohing and aaahing over warblers and other migrating birds. Here are a few photos for you.  We are off to scout other birds now.  I hope you will pledge to contribute to our fundraiser.

Yellow-breasted Chat

Indigo Bunting

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Scarlet Tanager

Holding Pattern

I am struggling to find something new to tell you since my last post but migration has been eerily quiet.  I've been to several birding "hotspots" over the past week and have not seen many new birds arriving from the south.  Warblers, vireos, thrushes and flycatchers should be dribbling in and gaining in numbers, shorebirds should be arriving daily by now.  It's May for pete sake. We are having gorgeously beautiful days with bright blue skies and light winds - but no birds. All of the other birders that post on email and blogs are complaining of the same thing so at least I know that I'm not just missing them somehow.

Here are 2 photos to hold you over until they start showing up. 

Barn Swallow

Orchard Oriole

I hope they arrive next week while Connie and I are at the shore all week.

Starting to Gain Momentum

I started the day with the normal dog walk around Lemon Hill. I brought the camera along just in case a bird or two posed for me which they did.  The first was a Goldfinch - a very common bird but this one was lit up by the morning sun so I had to take a photo.Notice how gold he is now. Some of the Goldfinches at my house are still dull and mottled, not quite gold like this guy.

Goldfinch

The next bird that posed was a Pine Warbler - in a pine tree, how convenient for identification.

Pine Warbler

As I was headed back to the car, I ran into this Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - almost literally. This bird was bouncing around in the bushes pretty low and right next to the path.  I shot about 100 photos and none came out very good. These tiny birds never stop moving which makes them difficult to get in focus (no excuse, a good photographer can get great shots of a bird that comes this close).

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

I headed down to the shore after work to chase after a Swallow-tailed Kite which I didn't see but I did get to see a few First of Year birds including Blue Grosbeak and Blue-headed Vireo which was nice.  Here is Blue Grosbeak showing his, well, big beak.

Blue Grosbeak

This is one of 4 Blue-headed Vireos that I saw feeding in the trees at Cox Hall Creek. I have never seen this kind of bird in a flock before.  I love the spectacles on these birds.

Blue-headed Vireo

Headed down to Higbee at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to see if the wind blows anything else in.

Magic of Dusk

Di, Barbara and I met our new birding friend Harvey to check out a new trail in Del Haven this morning.  We didn't see much, but we did hear and see our first Ovenbird of the year and then did some chores all afternoon.  Nothing special really until we went to the Cape May State Park after dinner.  What an unexpected treat. Di asked me to look at a bush to see a warbler, but when I looked at the bush, I immediately noticed something much more interesting.

Common Nighthawk - roosting

This is a Common Nighthawk which I have never seen roosting. I have only ever seen them flying. They are nocturnal birds that roost like this during the day and then fly around beginning at dusk catching insects in flight. They have extraordinarily long wings with white patches on the wrists which make the ID unmistakable in flight.  Click on the photo to enlarge to see the tiny beak on this bird. 

I was so excited that I send out a text message about it.  Within a few minutes, Richard Crossley showed up with his camera to see the bird.  Richard is a famous birder and author of Crossley ID Guide series.  We have 2 of them at the house.  They are really good guides that have alot of photos of each bird in various "normal" positions and habitats.  We stood there and watched the bird until sunset when the bird took flight, circled the pond and flew off into the night. 

Quick Post

Great-horned Owl babies are really funny looking. I can't resist taking photos of them on the rare occasion that I actually get to see them. Now is the time of year to see the white fur balls in the nest with Mom.  I had a great opportunity to photograph this scene last week in Palmyra NJ.

Great-horned Owls

Some amateur guy with a little camera got too close to the tree trying to photograph the raccoon that you saw a few days ago in my other post and scared Mom out of the nest.  Here are the babies looking for Mom.  Take a close look and you can see the "horns" already trying to poke out of their fluffy heads.

Owlets

On my quest to be competitive in this stupid contest, there are some common birds that seem to be avoiding me.  One of them is the White-crowned Sparrow, a bird that is not "common" by any means, but I thought I would have run across one given the fact that I have been out birding like a nut.  I finally got the bird at Bombay Hook last weekend.  Whew.

White-crowned Sparrow