Migration of a Different Kind

Cape May in fall is touted as "off the charts" and "so many birds". This marketing brings many birders to Higbee beach in September and October expecting lots of birds. Us "locals" know that the migration phenomenon only happens when conditions are right. Those conditions consist of winds blowing from the northwest overnight and birds bottled up to the north of NJ waiting for the right winds. Even when everything looks right, the birds sometimes fool us and don't show up. That happened this weekend. The winds blew out of the northwest on Thursday night but Friday morning left us birders high and dry for the most part. Luckily, there were a few stray birds. We saw over 50 Northern Parulas. This one posed on a posy for us. The ID here is the green patch on the back and split eye ring.

Northern Parula

This young Black and White warbler was lit up by the morning sun. The ID here is that this "black" and white is really more "brown" and white. 

Black and White Warbler

This House Wren was none too happy with us walking past. Kind of giving us the stink eye.

House Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are showing up on their way south. This one was really trying to show off. They are so twitchy that they are hard to photograph.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Once this little flurry of birds past through, I went to work. Other birders found some more migrants but not the quantities that we expected.

Saturday was worse than Friday. Barely any birds at all. Peanut and I walked the fields, went to breakfast, birded some other places, then I went to the State Park at the lighthouse to sit at the hawkwatch hoping to see a show. I did get a show but not of the bird variety. I walked up the trail between the hawkwatch and the beach dunes and walked into a dream world of Monarch butterflies.

Monarch Butterfly Roost

The photo above depicts 80 butterflies. They were everywhere. Flying, feeding on flowers, and hanging on the cedar trees. Click on the video below to see them in action.

I've never seen anything like this before. I met a woman who monitors Monarchs. She said that the butterflies were stopped in NJ due to the high winds and that they would spend the night roosting in the trees. If the winds were good on Sunday, they would head south. And they did.

There were so many Monarchs that there weren't enough flowers for them to each have their own.

Feeding Frenzy

I also learned to tell the difference between male and female Monarchs. This one is a male. Notice the 2 little spots on the viens.

Male Monarch Butterfly

This one is a female. No spots.

Female Monarch Butterfly

All in all, an amazing experience. I hope the birds come through soon.

Paulie's Quest

I know this is supposed to be a bird blog but sometimes, other creatures make their way in front of my camera lens and into my story line. This week, many of those creatures had wings but no feathers. I found these beauties in The Villages while visiting my mother on her birthday (Happy Birthday Mom). The first is Fiery Skipper. Fiery indeed. Bright orange!

Fiery Skipper

This guy caught my eye with his long tail. Remarkably, the species is Long-tailed Skipper. Go figure.

Long-tailed Skipper

 I didn't even notice that he had a bright green/teal body under those long wings.

Long-tailed Skipper

And then there was this eye catcher. It is a Gulf Fritillary. Zoom in to see the checkered eyeball.

Gulf Fritillary

 Hard to believe that this is the same butterfly seen from the top. Beautiful orange.

Gulf Fritillary

I was feeling pretty good about seeing all of these beautiful butterflies and headed back to my Mom's house where I found her neighbor Paulie there talking about the same thing - butterflies. He invited us to his house to check them out. We found this magnificent Monarch in his garden. There were others too.

Monarch Butterfly

And then we found out why. Seems Paulie has become a nursemaid in his retirement. The porch has incubators where caterpillars turn into butterflies. Here he is with the newest members of his Monarchy.

Paulie

Close up of the cocoons with the new butterflies. The butterflies come out with shriveled up wings and hang on the cocoon for a few hours before the wings are ready for duty. Paulie lets them out once they are "dry".

New Monarchs

Here is Connie letting one out.

Connie

Paulie finds the caterpillars in gardens around the neighborhood and brings them inside where he feeds them milkweed until they form a cocoon, then releases the Monarchs to continue their life cycle. Pretty cool.

Bugs and Birds

I haven't had time to post anything since I was away (again) for work in Washington DC and then catching up with work and home life. Last weekend, I headed to the shore and didn't find much in the way of interesting birds but I did get to hang out with some of the DVOCers. Here are a few photos starting with this beautiful Bald Eagle. Bald Eagle? Yes. This bird is what they call a "second year" bird which means that it is about 2 years old. You can tell by the feather pattern. This guy or gal looks exactly like the field guide which is why I can casually tell you the age of the bird. Most of the time, its not that cut and dry for me. This bird will get the white head and tail in another 2 years or so.

Bald Eagle - Second Year

Here is a Parula that was sitting still for a few seconds. That is a rare event for these tiny warblers. They are usually in motion and difficult to photograph.

Northern Parula

Like I said, not much in the way of rare or unusual birds. That wasn't the case for bugs though. My friend Chris told me about these weird caterpillars that hatched along the dunes so we went to see them  She was right . . .

Stinging Rose Caterpillar

Patty and Steve identified it for me. Steve wrote a nice blog post on his blog - Recycled Photons - if you want to check it out.

Cape May is full of dragonflies at this time of year. They migrate south just like birds do so you get to see alot of them in the fall. Most of the birders in Cape May can also identify the dragonflies but I just call them by color like this green and black striped one that was sitting along the path.

Dragonfly

I had to photograph this Monarch butterfly on the purple flower. Not weird or unusual, just pretty.

Monarch Butterfly

One of Those Weekends

Wow. We finally had one of those weekends that makes you say "WOW".  All of the stars aligned for a pretty great weekend of birding at the shore.  The winds were weird, the birds were stacked up to the north, and the Nerds were all available to be at the shore together. Get ready for back-to-back posts. I have too many stories and photos for just one. 

I got 2 life birds and the other Nerds probably got lifers too.  I started Saturday morning without the other Nerds at Higbee with my "Fall Friends" Gerry and Chris. I had my first life bird by 7:30 AM - a  Clay-colored Sparrow that sat in a little tree at the canal long enough for a photo.

Clay-colored Sparrow - Life Bird #722

Birds were flying past us at a ridiculous volume.  All birds heading NORTH. Why north?  Remember my post from last year?  We see birds flying north in the morning because they were flying the right way (south) overnight, but found themselves over the vast Delaware Bay when the sun came up.  They instinctively turn around and head back to shore if they find themselves over open water after a hard night of flying south.  Anyway, there were over 1,000 Blackpoll warblers flying north along with hundreds of other birds - including the little Clay-colored sparrow that landed in front of us. 

Next up, we were into the fields for some decent warblers and other birds. The topic of conversation was basically how dumb I was (nothing new there).  The dumb thing that I did this time was forget to bring nice clothes to the shore with me.  We had a memorial service to attend for my uncle George in Cape May Courthouse - and I forgot nice clothes.  What an idiot.  Of course, I don't think that Aunt Georgie would mind me showing up in jeans, but . . . Diane to the rescue!  She showed up with 2 extra pair of slacks, black socks and a nice vest that I could use.  Connie wore the other pair of pants!  We looked pretty good.  The service was really nice.  Here is a few of my favorite moments from the luncheon:

2 men behind me at the bar - one saying to the other "Well, a free lunch is a free lunch" and the other guy saying "That's exactly what George would have said!"  A woman asking if the booze was free or did she have to pay for the wine, then asking for 2 when the bartender said that there was no charge! Seeing Susan and Alfred.  Seeing Mim again.  Oh, and the impromptu Lincoln High School reunion.  George was a funny guy and it showed by the way everyone remembered him.

After the luncheon, we were back out birding but it wasn't birds that caught our attention.  It was Monarch butterflies.  We got word of a Monarch butterfly roost that was developing at Cape May Point by the dunes so we headed over.  Wow again.  Thousands of Monarch butterflies congregating on a few pine trees.  The experts on Monarch butterflies are Michael O'Brien and Louise Zematis. They were at the site educating dozens of people who came to see the spectacle.  The butterflies gather in the dunes to wait for southerly winds to carry them across the bay.  I don't know how they know to find the same trees as their brethren, but they do:

 Monarch butterflies roosting in the sun

Monarch butterflies - click to enlarge to see how many are in this one shot

They all took off on Sunday. Some stayed around, some headed out over the bay.  Its one of those things that materializes and awes all who see it.  More later.

Stay At Home Weekend

I can't remember the last weekend that Connie and I spent home - together. We had half a plan to go to Cape May on Saturday.  But even with the tweets and blog posts from CMBO reporting incredible amounts of migrating Monarch butterflies (click the link for awesome photos and report) and good amounts of warblers, the trip just seemed like too much. 

Instead, we went to Lake Galena and Pine Run Reservoir on Saturday morning, then over to Lori and Tara's neighborhood yard sale.  Peace Valley was a bust for warblers, but we got a great view of White-eyed Vireo.  The yard sale was pretty good.  Of course Connie bought some stuff.  Then we went to NY Camera and Video and walked out with a new camera lens. A Sigma 150-500mm Optical Stabilized zoom lens. 

Today, we took the lens to Palmyra Cove Nature Park right at the base of Tacony Palmyra Bridge.  We saw 44 species and had a front row seat to a Yellow-billed Cuckoo show.  I shot 100+ photos of the bird. Only one is sort of OK.  Sort of.  I'm really disappointed.  I'm taking the lens back to the store this week.  What do you think?

We also saw Philadelphia Vireo for the second weekend in a row.  You can really tell the difference between Red-eyed and Philadelphia when you see them both in the same tree.  The Philadelphia is smaller, plumper, and has more yellow up on the throat.  Here are photos for comparison (again, just barely in focus with the new lens):

Philadelphia Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo