"Yip" "Yip" "Yip"eee for August

August is a weird month for birders. It's weird because most of the northern hemisphere considers August the epitome of summer. Everyone is thinking about days on the beach. One of my favorite birds nests on the beach. They fly close to the water and "Yip, yip yip" like puppies. They nest in colonies along the beach which are roped off to protect them from beach going vacationers like us. Here is one of the happy couples.

Black Skimmers

 This one has an itch. Check out the schnoz on this guy.

Scratch that itch

Here is another happy couple with their little fluff ball of joy.

Black Skimmers with Baby

The babies are the color of sand. They even have spots that look like shells and stones. Here are 2 little play pals on the beach.

When Mom and Dad are out fishing, the chicks find little divots to hide in. They are perfectly camouflaged - except for that schnoz!

Skimmer Chick - camouflaged

Skimmers' beaks are so big that they can't sleep like other birds with their beaks tucked under their wings. No, they just flop their heads down on the sand.

Napping on the beach

Like mother, like daughter - the chicks flop their heads on the sand to sleep even though their beaks aren't big enough to get in the way yet.

Lullaby Time

Here is a close up to show you what that beak is all about. The bottom mandible is longer than the top and shaped like a knife. They drag that through the water's surface while they fly and feel for fish. When they feel one, they snap their beak shut to snare the fish.

Close-up of Skimmer Beak

Skimmers also put on an aerial show in their free time. Even way up there, you can see that schnoz!

Skimmer Antics

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other birds to see in August. Some of them are already done with all of that chick raising stuff and headed back south - in August. More on that later.

Beach Babies

Here are some pretty cute photos of beach babies - American Oystercatchers and Least Terns - all taken while I waited for the Brown Booby to show up at Seven Presidents Park in north Jersey.  The Booby only made a brief appearance way offshore which counts for the stupid contest but can't top last year's sighting (remember it with me by clicking this link).

The Oystercatchers have one chick that they were feeding while I was there. Dad (or Mom) brought some sort of little black mussel or clam or something back, dug it out and then let the chick pick it up and gulp it down.

Oystercatcher with chick

Chick with gooey clam thing

Chick with clam

Down the hatch

The other beach babies were Least Terns. They all nest in a roped off area.  This Mom was pretty close to the rope and revealed 2 chicks when she got up and walked over to squawk at us for being too close - even though we were outside of the roped area.  I snapped a few photos of the babies before she got back to them.  Then she didn't sit on them anyway. I guess they could use a little sunshine before it got too hot.

Least Tern

Least Tern - new chick underneath (look closely)

Least Tern - chicks (there are 2 of them) and Mom

Least Tern Chicks - look closely

The next post will be a compilation from our trips to Potter county.

Beach Buddies - Corrected

Some of you may have read a post on the NJBirds listserv about the Philly Bird Nerds this weekend.  Have no fear, we don't need bail money!  We spent the morning with our friend Harvey starting out at Cox Hall Creek, grabbing breakfast at Sunset Grill so that we could eat and watch the bay at the same time.  I noticed a pair of ducks that looked like Scoters bobbing around one of the jetties, so we drove up to get a better look after downing the last of our breakfast sandwiches.

Scoters in Cape May in June is weird.  Black Scoters are the most common scoter that is found around our area but mostly from October through April when they take off for northern breeding grounds. The first 2 that we saw were a male and female. It got really interesting when we got out to the beach and saw 3 more scoters - which we thought were all juveniles. These birds almost looked like they could be White-winged Scoters because they had a white strip on the wing.  Closer examination showed that the white wing strip was actually molting feathers. Thanks to Rick Wright and Harvey for setting me straight on this.

Black Scoter - in wing molt

Here is the adult male swimming around the jetty.  I had to sweet talk the beach tag lady to let me onto the beach for these photos. This is interesting, but not worth $10 (our Cape May beach tags don't work at Cape May Point)

Black Scoter - adult male

Things got really interesting when 2 of the birds started getting closer to the beach and then popped out of the water.  Scoters are sea ducks and not regularly found on land - hence they look kind of awkward.

Comin' ashore

 

Look, I can dance

You can see by the next photo that these birds are unable to fly. Look at those ratty wings! 

Testing my wings

These 2 stayed on the beach for a good 15 minutes waddling, preening and generally taking in the scene before finally heading back out to join the rest of the family.

Surf's Up!

I couldn't resist this shot.  That's Harvey photographing the same scoters. You can see that these birds didn't really care about being close to human activity - that's the Cape May Point life guard and some other brave beach-goers in the background too.  You can also see why these photos aren't that great. It was threatening rain the entire time we were on the beach.

Harvey's buddies

Harvey did some research on the birds and found out that they don't nest until later in the season which means that all of our birds were adults - born at least last summer.  So, why are these 5 birds hanging around Cape May in June when they should be up in northern Quebec or Labrador Canada?  Could it be that they are only first-year birds?  Probably, since they don't breed until they are at least 2 years old. I still think its weird that they are hanging around NJ.  Harvey told me that there are only a dozen reports of scoters in NJ over the past 13 years so it isn't THAT common.

The Eagles Have Landed

Before making a complete fool of myself with the cat at Jake's Landing on Sunday (see below), Barbara and I were treated to a fantastic sight on our beach at Ohio Ave:

 Barbara posing with the distant eagles

A closer view of the eagles sitting on the sandbar at low tide

Cropped to see that they are picking at a fish or something

Flying off together

These eagles are often seen sitting on the sandbar that forms at low tide, but only when low tide occurs in the morning before the hustle and bustle of beach walkers and dogs.  They take flight at first sight of people as they did on Sunday.