Sally's Barn Swallows

Connie and I went to Aunt Sally's annual picnic on Sunday. Sally has a little farm where she keeps an old Horse (Emily) and an old Mule (Daisy). The pasture has a spring-fed pond where Connie saw her first Pterodactyl (Great Blue Heron) when she was a kid and still has great birds throughout the year.

This year, the neighbors across the road have Guinea Hens which make quite a racket. We also got to watch Cowbirds doing almost what they are supposed to do which is follow cows around the open plains. These birds were actually following the horse and mule around the pasture picking up insects that were scared up by the grazing. Pretty neat.

There are also Barn Swallows nesting in, well the barn. And although the pasture isn't that close to the nests, the swallows did not like Roxy milling around. Here is a video of the Barn Swallow swooping on Roxy. This continued for the entire time that Roxy was in the pasture more than an arms length away from me. Watch Roxy flinch when the swallow gets too close!

Take a Kid Birding

That is a saying from bumper stickers all around Cape May. Obviously a ploy to entice young people to become members of the Audubon and other aging birding clubs. It's a strategy that political parties and religious groups have employed for centuries - get the young people involved so we can continue this "club".

Well, Barbara and I did our part on Sunday morning. We took my nephew Brendan (you may remember him from other posts at Hawk Mountain and Tinicum) to Cape May Point State Park to try for the Purple Gallinule again. Brendan made a comment that he had been to CMPSP last fall and didn't see anything. Well, that's a challenge if I ever heard one! Needless to say, he got 3 life birds with Aunt Linda and Barbara - Glossy Ibis, Surf Scoter, and Least Tern. He probably got more than that since we recorded 39 species in an hour but never did see the Gallinule.

I think he's sufficiently hooked on birding. Now, I want my toaster oven or whatever I'm supposed to get as a prize for inducting another birder into the club.

Kestrals at Warminster Community Park

Barbara the owl lady sent an email about Kestrals nesting at Warminster Community Park. Here is a link to photos of the babies inside the nest sent by Russell Neiger, a local:

MSN Photos - Kestral Babies

Lori, Tara and I went over to the park on Wed after work. I saw Momma Kestral sitting on top of the box when I arrived. She took off being chased by Red-winged Blackbirds and didn't return for awhile. Both Kestrals returned to the area and we had good views of them hover-hunting for insects in the grass.

If you haven't been to Warminster Community Park, you should take a quick trip up some evening. It used to be Johnsville Airbase and Naval Air Station, so the entire park is basically the old air strip with open fields, scrubby bushes, and woods along the perimeter. Good birds here include the Kestral as mentioned above, Brown Thrasher, Yellow Warblers, variety of Sparrows and supposedly Meadowlarks - although Lori and I haven't seen one yet.

Down on the Farm (no Bob Evans needed)

In case you were wondering what my secret motivation for buying the houses at the shore was, I'll let you in on it. But don't tell anyone else. My secret motivation is - Jersey tomatoes (or any homegrown tomato for that matter). Growing up in Philly, we always had a really good garden that produced alot of tomatoes. Then, I moved to the suburbs which was my chance to expand the growing opportunities and produce more produce (pun intended). Well, that turned out to be a big bust. Rydal is a really nice place to live if you like big trees and shade which I do. Tomatoes, not so much.

After 11 years of stunted vegetable plants and red tomatoes in September, I transported the whole 12' x 12' raised bed, enclosed garden to the Villas. I also set up a timed sprinkler system to keep everything watered during the week. Guess what? Paydirt! We already picked 3 peppers, have a ripening tomato, 2 eggplants that should be ready to eat this weekend, and a baby watermelon. Location, location, location. And manure-infused sandy soil. Of course, this puts the price of each tomato up in the $14,000 range, but should be well worth the price!

Tomato and Eggplant plants, also the watering system

First Jersey Tomato of the season - or my life for that matter

Baby watermelon

Aside from gardening and working on getting the green house livable, Barbara and I were determined to find "Davies Lake" which is supposed to be located on the south end of Higbee's Beach behind the dunes. We also wanted to track down the Purple Gallinule that has been seen at Cape May Point State Park. We got the Gallinule, but busted again on finding the lake. We were foiled by high tide which makes it impossible to cross the creek unless you want to go waist deep in water. We were not dressed appropriately.

iDiot with an iPhone

That is what I am. (Notice the clever way that I used the lower-case "i" in iDiot) I replaced my Droid with an iPhone last week due to the fact that the Droid wouldn't hold a battery charge anymore. Especially after I dumped a whole cup of tea on it during the World Series of Birding. The iPhone has all kind of capabilities and apps that you can download including the entire Sibley Guide (east and west) with sound, Scrabble, oh and a camera.

The camera is why I am an iDiot. This weekend was full of baby showers but Connie and I headed to the Villas anyway to check on the garden and try to relax. We both got up early and took the dog onto the beach for a quick walk. We arrived to a beach full of Laughing Gulls and Horseshoe crabs. There were probably 2,000 gulls on the beach gulping up the crab eggs and probably hundreds of crabs still doing "the nasty". About 100 crabs were upside down on the sand so Connie and I started flipping them over and/or carrying them back to the water's edge. This went on for a few blocks until I noticed a Laughing Gull flailing around in the mud. The poor guy couldn't get out of the muck so I went ankle deep in the slimy mud and picked him up. He was exhausted and couldn't put up much of a fight.

I carried the gull over to Biggie's because I knew she have a cardboard box to put the gull in so that we could keep him calm until we found out where to take him. We called CMBO for info on local bird rehabilitators. They suggested some guy named Steve who never called me back. I decided take the bird to Tri-State Bird Rescue in Newark Delaware on my way to Lauren's baby shower. On my way? Kind of.

Anyway, notice the lack of photos on this post? No photos in spite of the fact that I spent 5 hours with that gull either in my hands, on our porch, or in the passenger seat of the Subaru within inches of my new iPhone 4 with built-in camera. I am truly an iDiot.

I just checked with Tri-State about the bird. He is still there. Still alive. I told them that I would drive him back to the Villas if he can be released. Stay tuned.

That's Why It's Called "Fishing", Not "Catching"

Biggie and I went flounder fishing yesterday on the Lady Chris out of Cape May. As the title of the post suggests, we didn't catch any fish. We basically went on a 4 hour boat ride into Delaware Bay. There were only 5 other people on the trip and it was cold and damp. We were happy to get back to the dock.

Again, why does this story get into a birding blog? Because we didn't catch any fish, but I did manage to get a life bird - Wilson's Storm Petrel. I noticed the brown bird about the size of a Robin flying low over the water like a land bird. Then the bird looked like it was trying to pedal a bicycle on the water, then flew off again. He (or she) did this around the boat for the entire hour that we were fishing along out near the channel light house.

Here is a photo from David Jones from the New England Seabirds website that shows the pedaling behavior. I didn't bring my camera on the fishing trip (dumb).



Here is a link to a good website about Wilson's Storm Petrels. I didn't know that they breed in the Antarctic until I read this:

http://www.neseabirds.com/BirdsStormpetrelswsp.htm

Sanderling Update

Phillipa just sent these photos of me handling the Sanderlings, so I thought I would post them as an update. Here is a good photo showing how we weighed the birds and all of the tools involved for the banding.


Here is a photo of me kissing the last bird "good-bye" with Joan giggling in the background.

200, 90, and 65

These are the numbers of Sanderlings that were banded today at the end of our street in the Villas. 200 is the total number of birds banded. 90 is the number of Sanderlings that Connie's group processed with Connie recording the data. And 65 is the number of birds that I weighed and released for my group (we processed fewer birds because we had to measure them too).

Sandering

What a cool way to spend a hot day at the shore. It all started with Connie walking the dog while I sweat my ass off mowing the lawn(s). Connie saw a guy with binoculars walking toward the protected beach. She was just about to say something to him, when he stopped and scanned the beach with binoculars and turned around to leave. He told Connie that they were going to band some birds in about a half hour at Maryland Ave and that she could come and watch. Meanwhile I was at 243 Maryland Ave mowing around Poison Ivy and feral Cactus - but I digress.

We grabbed our binoculars and went to the end of the street to join the group. The group was a collaborative effort from a few state and federal agencies along with non profits including the Fish and Wildlife Service and Conserve Wildlife New Jersey group that I volunteered with last week. I had already met Mandy and Larry at the Shorebird Steward training, so they invited us to participate in the effort rather than just watch - cool.

Gary with a Sanderling

The process of banding shorebirds starts with scouting the beaches to find a location with alot of the target species - Sanderlings - which ended up being Maryland Ave. Next, the experts set up the net which is attached to cannons along the dune. The volunteers creep down the dune path and keep our heads low so that the birds can't see us. Then, on the signal ( 3, 2, 1, FIRE!), the cannon goes off and shoots the net over the birds on the beach. Then the banders (including me and Connie) run like banchees down to the water's edge and start moving the birds into the middle of the net, making sure to get any birds out of the water. Next, other volunteers start removing the target birds from the nets and placing them into covered bins - 20 Sanderlings to each bin. The bins are then placed under a tent to keep the birds cool until we can get them banded.

Once we had enough birds, the rest were released from the net and we started the banding process. I was put into Larry's group and Connie was in Clive's group. Clive is an Australian who invented the cannon net 40 years ago and is a pioneer in the field of shorebird banding and conservation. Larry is an expert in shorebird conservation and works with geolocators to track migration and nesting.

Clive attaching the band

Connie was the data recorder for her group. The banders would tell her the tag numbers and weight of each bird and she would record that info. She did that for 90 birds I was the weigher in my group. The young Chilean woman who was taking bill, head and wing measurements would hand the bird to me. I would put the bird in a little piece of PVC pipe, place it on the scale and tell our recorder the weight (in grams) and then release them on the beach. I did this for 65 birds.

Sanderling in the PVC pipe being weighed

Most birds met or exceeded the weight needed to make the rest of the migration to the arctic which is 83 grams. Some were still under weight and needed to fatten up a bit more before taking off. Connie's group had the fattest bird - 106 grams.

It was a really great experience. Connie told me everything she learned about the bird's anatomy, migration, weight, age of birds etc. She asked me what I learned and got mad when I told her what I learned - Larry went to Archbishop Wood, Joan grew up in Mayfair but moved before high school otherwise she would have gone to St. Huberts, Phillipa is from the UK and is here with her father who is part of the banding group, Gabby is a veterinarian from Chile and is here with her husband Sergio for the experience, Jane is on the board of NJ Audubon and likes to make up names for the birds based on the tag number ("Hip" for H1P, "Jim" for J1M, etc) and also likes to sing to the them while the pipe dope which secures the flags on the bird's leg dries, Mandy is from NJ and wants to grow her hair out like Snooki (not really) . I think Connie wanted me to learn more about the birds. . .

PVC pipe dope being applied to the leg flag

All photos courtesy of Connie's cell phone today. The telephoto lens didn't do me any good when we were this close to the action.

Points North

Barbara and I just got back from 2 days in north Jersey birding Highpoint and Stokes State Parks with the NJ Audubon workshop. It was advertised as a birding by ear workshop but the most "by ear" that I got was the all of the yapping by the group. It started out with someone not getting the message about the new start time and consequently being late (and not apologizing to the group) which other people complained about and went on from there. The workshop was really a 2 day field trip with some emphasis on bird song rather than a true workshop with structured learning anyway. I should have paid more attention in my Organizational and Group Dynamics class in college. It would have come in handy!

I'd like to get the highlights out of the way right up front even at the risk that you will not read the rest of the post - we got Cerulean Warbler before 7 AM on the first day! We got 2 Cerulean Warblers, both male and female, singing and flitting over our heads not really that high up in trees before 7 AM on the first day. We got a total of 9 Cerulean Warblers over the 2 day trip.

You can't see the beautiful blue color of the bird in this photo, but you can see the nice "necklace" indicating that this is the male.

There, now that is out of the way, we can move on to other highlights including a Porcupine sleeping in a tree:

I want to bring this cutie home as a pet.

Barbara and I stayed at a really cute motel called Myers Motel in Milford PA which wasn't a motel at all, but little cabins. We went up on Tuesday evening so that we would have a shorter drive on Wed morning at 0'dark:30. We were delighted to find Chris - our handsome Swedish friend - was staying at the same place. He carpooled with us for the field trips which was alot of fun. All three of us forgot that we were supposed to pack a lunch, so we had to run out to McDonald's to pick something up. The trip leaders told us to meet at the campground for a picnic lunch. We had to take a photo of this sign on our way into the campground because it cracked us up:

No Picnicking!

Another highlight was this beautiful Canada Warbler that we saw along the bog trail at Highpoint. We met a serious photographer along the trail that was a really friendly. This guy was almost too friendly. Usually, when we see serious photographers in the field, they give us the cold shoulder hoping that we will go away and leave them to their secret find. Not this guy. Yack, yack, yack about what he was doing and asking what we were seeing. Then, he ended up on the boardwalk with us as we struggled to see the Canada Warbler through the shrubs. Our trip leaders were "pishing" and squeaking trying to get the bird to come closer. Not the photographer. He didn't struggle or pish or squeak. He just pulled out his iPod and played the Canada Warbler song which made the real bird come closer to investigate. Snap, snap, snap went the camera and viola, he had his shot. I got this shot which isn't great due to the limitations of my lens and the limitations of my skills:

Canada Warbler

Speaking of pishing and squeaking to get birds to come closer, the entire group was amazed by one of the leader's ability to imitate Barred Owl. Scott Barnes sounds more like a Barred Owl than a real owl. He was amazing. He would do the call - "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all" to get the woodpeckers riled up. Apparently, woodpeckers and owls have a long standing feud over nesting holes kind of like the Hatfields and McCoys. He made this call often but one time another owl called back - "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all" and then flew closer. The Barred Owl landed in a tree about 100 yards away through the woods. We all got a good look even though we had to line up:

taken with Barbara's iPhone

I was not able to get a photo of the owl since it was back in the thick of the woods. But I did manage to get a photo the other big highlight of the day - Mississippi Kite catching bugs and eating them in mid air out at the Highpoint monument overlook. What a great find. Here is a lousy photo, in which you can see the field marks of the bird - whitish head, pointy-ish wings, and feet up to it's mouth while it picks apart a bug in mid-flight.

Mississippi Kite
(yes, I still have to sign the m-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i song in my head when typing Mississippi)

Group Dynamics not withstanding, we all had fun and learned something. I learned that NJ Park Rangers are not the nicest. Although he didn't catch us picnicking, he did yell at me for parking outside of the designated parking spots at the monument overlook even though I explained that I was trying to use the car as a tripod for the camera to get this group shot, and there were no other cars around except ours.

Group shot taken from the car which was legally parked in the designated spot - we could see NJ, NY, and PA from this overlook

I highly recommend a trip to Highpoint State Park for birding. I also recommend going with a group for your first trip if possible as the park is pretty big and you can miss the "hotspots" if you try it on your own. You can decide whether to brush up on your group dynamics skills or not.

Volunteering to Protect Shorebirds

I signed up to be a Shorebird Steward through the Conserve Wildlife NJ program. This program asks people to work at protected beaches along the Delaware Bay during the spring shorebird migration period. Asa Shorebird Steward, the volunteer should educate people about beach closings in order to protect the endangered Red Knot shorebirds. These birds migrate from Argentina all the way to the Arctic to nest, stopping at Delaware Bay to fatten up on horseshoe crab eggs during crab spawning season which runs from May 7 to June 7 this year. Basically - keep people off of the beaches that are designated as protected.

There are several beaches with this status along the bayshore - the famous Reed's Beach, Cook's Beach, Kimble's Beach, Foresque, and the Villas. What? The Villas is a mecca for horseshoe crabs and endangered shorebirds? Yep. The Villas. Guess where our new shacks are? Yep. Smack dab in the middle of the protected beach. What luck. Obviously, I volunteered for the Villas duty which turned out to be really smart since our refrigerator quit working and we had to make a quick trip to Cape May Court House to buy a new one (which Di found on Craig's List really cheap) and also let the Comcast guy in to hook up cable TV (we have been miserable without the Phillies games).

I worked on the Sunday after the World Series, this past Saturday, and today. The first day was kind of a bust. No crabs, very few birds, and zero Red Knots. Yesterday was a little better. About 100 crabs came onto the beach at high tide (around 1 PM) and there were a few more birds but still no Red Knots. The majority of birds were Laughing Gulls, Semi-palmated Sandpipers and Sanderlings. The big downer of the day was the text message I recieved stating "Red Knots are here. 5000 + Red Knots at Reed's Beach" Meanwhile I was twiddling my thumbs in the Villas.

Today was the best day so far with over 2,000 crabs on the beach at high tide, a few thousand shorebirds, and a few dozen Red Knots mixed in. Here is a photo (click to enlarge) showing horseshoe crabs (the big gray blobs in the foreground) and shorebirds (the small gray dots that stretch to the end of the beach).

Here is a close-up of the horseshoe crabs mating (still rated G). The large crab in the center is the female. All of the other crabs are males trying to fertilize eggs.

Here is a close-up of the eggs - the little green dots in between the stones. It reminds me of tapioca. These eggs consist of alot of protein and fat that the shorebirds (particularly Red Knots) need to successfully breed this season.

This is a photo of a Red Knot taken by Christopher Wood from the Allaboutbirds.org website. Remember, I didn't get to see many so I didn't get a photo for myself.

.

Scouting is the Most Fun

The "Big Day" of the World Series of Birding is fun, but we don't really get to do much bird watching. It's more bird counting, then running off to the next place, the next bird, the next tweet. We like to actually see the colorful warblers, and see the breeding plumage and see the behaviors rather than just hear a song, or a tweet or a whistle and say - "oh, that's a Blackpoll Warbler" or " Didjya hear that? - Summer Tanager".


We spent a few days leading up to the Big Day scouting the areas hoping that the birds we saw would still be there on Saturday. We did a pretty good job of note taking, we tried some new spots, and we even got a Microwave at a yard sale for $5!


Here is the best photo that I have of a Common Yellowthroat - ever. This guy popped up at the Cape May Lighthouse Hawk Watch Platform during our scouting while we watching a Yellow-billed Cuckoo pick tent caterpillars out of the cherry tree. We got to count this species again for the Big Day on Saturday. I am telling myself it was the same bird.

We ARE Smarter than 5th Graders!

Whew, we completed our 2nd annual World Series of Birding this Saturday and beat those pesky 5th graders. We got 121 species (5 more than last year) while the elementary school children only got 118. HA. We showed them That's the good news. The bad news is that the 8th graders beat us again. They got something like 143.

Philly Bird Nerds at the Awards Breakfast (no, we didn't get an award)

We started at 2:55 AM and ended after 9:15 PM and had a lot of laughs along the way. When you do a "Big Day" contest like this, you see the same groups of birders and teams at various locations throughout the day. We tend to amuse ourselves by giving them names. Like "No Stripes", the couple that has the same Mini Cooper as Diane, but no stripes on the car which doesn't makes it look as nice as Di's. And "Marge and Judy" the 2 women that I tried to descibe the location of the Phoebe nest that made Diane tease me for the rest of the day so much that Lori almost peed her pants. And "Those Crazy Bikers" - the group of guys who did the whole day on bicycles. We vowed to run them over with the Suburban but gave up on that idea after the parents of the one guy showed us Norther Harrier at Stipson's Island Road (and took the photo above).

We have no doubt that they have names for us too. Especially on this Big Day. You see, I had a genius idea last week to quell the onslaught of mosquitos that we endured last year - screens for the car windows. Yup. We put screens on the windows of the Suburban. My genius idea was to use duct tape to secure screen on the outside of the truck. The plan got even better when we talked to the guy at Napa Auto Parts who sold us "automotive body work" tape which will not damage the paing and easy to remove.

nothing but class for us

We also got a life bird for all of the team members - a Parasitic Jaeger that was chasing terns around off of Cape May Point. We didn't get a lot of common warblers including Northern Parula that we were seeing and hearing every day since mid-April even in the middle of Philly. We didn't get Cedar Waxwing. And we didn't get our "signature" bird - the Black-throated Blue Warbler (enlarge our team photo above to view the logo). We did manage to get Great Horned Owl this year. We almost didn't get Bald Eagle which are a given along Delaware Bay any other day.

I want to thank all who made the day a big success including the Nerds:
Tara who sacrificed her birthday for scouting on Friday
Di who limped through the day still recuperating from knee surgery
Lori who suffered the day without her beloved warblers
Barbara who endured the most scouting with me
Connie who had to miss most of the day due to a funeral and showed up for the end at 7:30 PM

Big shout out to Barb Kolb who graciously designed and embroidered our new team shirts on short notice. Thanks Barb, at least we looked good at the Awards Breakfast.

Huge thanks to Marleen, Sheila and the rest of the WSB support staff/volunteers for making this year another fun event.

At last, the final thanks goes to you, the readers and pledgers. Please send a check made out to NJ Audubon in the amount of whatever you pledged per bird x 121 to me. I'll collect and forward the whole lot to them.

I've been getting up at O dark 30 to bird for the past couple of weeks. Trying to listen to warbler songs, getting ready for the big day this saturday in Cape May with the rest of the bird nerds. Went this morning to Peace Valley Park in Bucks County. Learned that I still stink at figuring out who's singing. Stood still at one place because I kept hearing a warbler. One thing I did learn is that if you just stand still long enough, birds start to think you just belong there. I had male and female scarlet tanager hanging around my head, she was getting nesting material, and he kept sitting by me, not up high either. One of my favorite birds. Then a pileated woodpecker landed 20 feet from me, low on a tree, just pecking away. I looked at him, "Really? You're right there, and I can't find a stupid warbler....." Finally, after half an hour, ( mind you a lot was going on at this particular spot.) I spotted my singing warbler. A Redstart. Common warbler, should know his song, but I didn't. Then I heard a song that sounded like a bug, "Oh, worm eating warbler." Go chase down that bird. Norther Parula. Common warbler again. When I say common, it's just that we see these birds a lot. No chestnut sided, no cape may, no bay-breasted, no hooded, no kentucky, not even a magnolia. Did get rewarded with black-throated blue though. I guess I'm getting a little better, at least I know when I'm hearing a warbler. And, I'm able to ignore the catbird.
38 species total.

Lori

Yard Work

I was out in the yard tonight, in suburban Ivyland, and was treated to a flock of cedar waxwings.

then, this fellow shows up at the feeder. I snapped his picture, and then chased him away, my house finches were hungry. stupid grosbeak.

World Series of Birding

The nerds are busy. We are in the midst of closing on the Villas houses, plus gearing up for our second trip to the World Series of Birding which will be held on May 14th this year. We have entered in Cape May county only in order to reduce drive time and increase our chances of getting to hotspots multiple times throughout the day. I have been organizing the spreadsheet this week and using the Internet to track sightings of non-migrant species in order to pinpoint some locations.

Next week, the scouting begins in person. We will be driving around the county to get a feel for the amount of time it takes to get from site to site as well as whether reliable birds can be found. One thing we learned from last year is that we need to pay close attention to the tides in order to get shorebirds, gulls, and terns at the sites that we should expect them.

We hope to raise $500 or more for NJ Audubon with the help of your pledges. Here's how it works: you pledge a certain amount per bird (say 50 cents) and then we try to get as many birds as possible in order to increase the amount of your donation while trying to beat the 5th graders from last year. We will report back to you on Sunday to let you know how much you owe. Here is a link to the PLEDGE FORM. Please fill it out and send to me (linda at npowerpa.org - replace the "at" with @) We already have a few pledges, so thanks!

Good Friday

See a theme in the posts? Well we may not be religious here at the PBN blog, but it has been a Good Friday for me so far. I had 2 more FOS birds this morning that I had to enter as "rare" in my eBird report.

The first was that little ray of sunshine himself - Mr. Yellow Warbler! Gorgeous bright yellow bird flitting around a tree at the top of Lemon Hill. He stayed around so long that I left him, went to find Barbara and Sammy, came back and still watched him for another 5 minutes.

The second great find of the morning was on the other side of the mansion on Lemon Hill - which isn't a prairie at all but had a Prairie Warbler. Again, this bird was a decked out male in full breeding plumage. He was hanging around with 2 Palm Warblers and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Unfortunately, he didn't grace us with his wonderful song but we did get great views.

Not bad for walking the dogs. The weird thing to notice isn't what is coming, but what isn't going. Juncos are still on Lemon Hill and still at my feeders. When will they leave? Shouldn't they get the hint when they see all of these strangers showing up that they better get a move on up north? Hmmm.

Palm Sunday

After the wild weather that we had last night, the sun came out this morning and off we went. Roxy and I headed out to Pennypack Trust - one of our local patches - to see what the wind blew in last night. We ended up with 41 species including so many Palm Warblers that we stopped counting. I entered 40 into eBird. Our FOS Brown Thrasher and Northern Parula too.

This morning was a perfect outing to get us excited about our second World Series of Birding effort that is coming up on May 14th. That's right, the Bird Nerds are entering the WSB again. We are not going to let those 5th graders beat us again this year! We promise. Although it's a statewide contest, we have decided to enter as a LGA - Limited Geographic Area - and only bird Cape May County. We think we can get a lot of birds in the county and it will cut down on the driving time as well as keep us close to our new house(s) so we can pop in for food and bathroom if needed.

In fact, we are so confident that we can identify more birds this year, that we are even using the event to fundraise for Cape May Bird Observatory. We hope that you will pledge a few cents per species that we identify on May 14th. Our goal is set at 130 species this year. You could also pledge a few dollars for our overall effort by pledging a fixed amount for the effort regardless of how many species we see. Here is a link to the pledge form. Please print it out, fill it in, and email to me (linda at npowerpa.org - replace the at with @). Pledge Form In fact, get friends, family, coworkers to pledge too.

We will be updating you on our scouting and plans in the coming weeks.

Top 1000!

Woohoo. We made the FatBirder top 1000 this week thanks to all of you reading the blog. It's not that we get anything for it, but I like to think that all of this typing is being read by someone, so thanks for reading. Otherwise, I could just call my mother on the phone :-)

On to the birding story for this week. The big news is no secret - birds are on the move northward. We had our FOS (that's birdnerd for First Of Season) of the following:

• Palm Warbler
• Pine Warbler
• Eastern Towhee
• Chipping Sparrow
• Phoebe
• Cowbird (boo)
• Tree Swallow
• Swift
• Hermit Thrush

And there are more on the way everyday. Lori and Tara are headed down to Florida and should get plenty of migrants there. Then they will be heading our way.

We went to the shore last Sunday to check out the house(s) and do some birding. The weather was a bummer and not conducive to good photos, but we got a good list anyway with around 50 species. Tons of Common and Red-throated Loons and Gannets around the point and concrete ship, which are always a joy.

We also had a few good sparrows including a life bird for Di and Barbara - White-crowned sparrow. Here are some photos including a mystery sparrow that we still cannot identify. Please post a comment (below) with your thoughts.

Chipping Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Mystery Sparrow - photo #1

Mystery Sparrow - photo #2

Forster's Tern - passing a fish to his love interest

Stone Harbor Point

If you go to Stone Harbor Point any time over the next few months, you'll notice my handy work. Well, mine and about 15 other volunteers, that is. I helped the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ to put up fencing and signs to protect bird nesting habitat on Stone Harbor Point. We basically strung line between PVC posts and put up these signs (not a great photo):

The "fence" is supposed to keep people away from Piping Plover, Oystercatcher, and Least Tern nests along the point. The volunteer project started at 10 AM but I was there early so I took the opportunity to take some photographs of Ruddy Turnstones, tons of Dunlin and Sanderlings along the water and resting on this jetty:


Here is a pair of Oystercatchers that didn't seem very skittish. One of the volunteers was a nice young girl that was doing a school project. The Oystercatcher was one of the birds that she was hoping to see. Well she got to see a few.

Click to enlarge this next photo. The similarity between this birds legs and Connie's is striking! Good thing we'll be at the beach alot this summer so she can get a tan.

I spent about 20 minutes crouching next to the jetty waiting for the sun to come out from behind some clouds when I heard a crash behind me. I turned around to see this Herring Gull dropping a conch shell onto the rocks from about 8 feet in the air, then grabbing it to drop it again. Seagull fun, I guess.

The gull with his prize

Picking up the shell

Shell is still in the air

The other interesting note from the day is that an injured harbor seal was rescued from the point by the Marine Mammal Stranding group. The seal's progress can be checked Here. He (or she) is #75.

Wanna Be A Better Birder?

If you want to be a better birder, then you should do these things:

1. Go outside more - actually take time to go birding. This is the number one way to improve your birding skills but it isn't easy with our busy schedules. I am lucky that I have to walk Roxy twice a day. I bring binoculars with me often (just ask the neighbors).
   
   
2. Read more - subscribe to birding magazines and purchase as many field guides as possible. I subscribe to Bird Watcher's Digest, Birding, Birder's World. I also get Audubon and Living Bird magazines due to membership in Audubon and Cornell Lab. Here is a link to Surfbird.com's list of birding magazines.
   
   
3. Listen more - not to me, but to the birds. The best thing that I have done in the past few years to improve my birding skills is to take the CMBO Birding by Ear class. I probably added a few dozen life birds simply by recognizing a different song, buzz, tweet, or chip coming from the woods. This year, Pete Dunne is doing a one day backyard bird song workshop that you should definitely sign up for. Pete is a world renowned birder and author that you can spend a whole day with in a small group setting while bringing your bird identification skills to a new level. Don't miss out. Here is the link to CMBO site.

I hope this helps. Call or email me if you want to go birding. I'll make time.

Big News - Philly Bird Nerds at the Shore

Hello all. We have big news - the bird nerds are buying a place at the shore. For those of you who are not familiar with "the shore", it is the Philly/South Jersey way of saying "the beach". We say that we are going to "the shore" when we mean that we are going to a place near the coast in New Jersey. Our "shore" town is called The Villas which is situated along the Delaware Bay shore just north of Cape May and in the heart of birdwatching mecca. Once we are at "the shore", we go to "the beach". Example: our shore house in the Villas is 4 houses from the beach so once we are at the house, we would say "I'm going to the beach" which means that we are walking half a block to the actual beach. Understand? I know its confusing to outsiders but it makes perfect sense to people like us who grew up here. BTW, that's why the TV show is called Jersey Shore and not Jersey Beach.

We are actually purchasing 2 properties in the Villas. NO, we are not rich - the Villas is the cheapest property that you can find at the shore because it is on the bay side, not the ocean side of New Jersey. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to own a place at the shore and these properties are back-to-back with big yards. Please note that the houses are 2 bedroom, 1 bath shacks. We affectionately call them Green House (on Maryland Ave) and Blue House (on Ohio Ave) for obvious reasons. They both need work which tickles me and Barbara pink - you know we LOVE a project!

Here is a link to Di's Shutterfly site: http://greenhousebluehouse.shutterfly.com

The Villas is situated perfectly for birding in and around Cape May county. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that we bird here often. Here is a link to Google maps to show you the location of the Blue house. The green house is directly behind this on Maryland Ave.

Blue House

Woodcock Dance with Video

Patty invited me to go "Woodcocking" with her at John Heinz NWR (Tinicum) last night. That sounds kind of dirty doesn't it? I hope this post doesn't get blocked from the Internet for pornography. Anyway, Barbara and I met Patty and Jenn at the end of the road at Tinicum at 6 PM on Wed and headed out into the fields with a video camera. Let's just say the videos are kind of Blair Witch Project and leave it at that.

We did see the Woodcocks displaying starting at about 6:15 PM just like Patty predicted. I think we had a total of 6 different males "peenting" and flying around but one was pretty close. Woodcocks make a peent, peent, peent call from the ground and then take off in a big spiral up, up, and away until they are out of sight. All the while, you can hear a whistling sound created by the outer feathers of his wings as he ascends. Once he is out of sight, the Woodcock plummets back to earth whistling the whole way down to cozy up to his prospective mate. "Our" Woodcock came to earth in an opening where we could actually see him through the ever-darkening evening light. Pretty cool.

Although the Blair Witchiness of the video may make you motion sick, you can actually hear the peents and whistling. Enjoy.



Barbara making Blair Witch Project sounds:

Life Tribute and Life Bird

The Birdnerds owe our existence in some small way to Connie's oldest sister, Donna Ross who passed away recently. Donna's love of nature and love of teaching influenced Connie's childhood, career choice, and helped foster her interest in the natural world. Without that, who knows, maybe Connie and I would never have begun hiking or birdwatching together.

Donna was a true teacher from a very early age. This became evident at the church service on Saturday when the pastor asked people to say a few words about Donna. One by one, people came to the microphone and said the same thing - Donna's intelligence, love of nature, and ability to teach others touched them in a special way. Donna taught me about nature too when we were hiking together at the cabin or just talking at Christmas dinner. In fact, she taught a group of kids about desert life on the day that she passed away.

She was only 62 years old when she was taken from us. Too young.

People like Donna and her untimely passing make me want to get out and experience life at an even more fevered pace. The experience also reinforces upon me that we all need to share the natural world with others - kids, neighbors, coworkers, whoever - and teach them about all types of nature from bugs to flowers to birds. I will keep Donna's example in my mind going forward and hope that you do the same.

In that spirit, I took the opportunity to go after a life bird on Saturday in the midst of the funeral services. Donna's ashes are being buried at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery where her husband, a Vietnam Vet, has a plot. As fate would have it, Redheads (ducks) have been seen over the past week at Memorial Lake which is across the street from the cemetery. After the church service and luncheon, I made a beeline for the lake and was treated to 12 Redheads mixed in with the other waterfowl. Is that wrong? Maybe, but I like to think Donna would have wanted me to see those ducks.

Donna Chronister Ross 1948 - 2011

Quick FloridaTrip

The nerds were in Florida last week soaking up the sun and warm weather. We had a good time boating and birding. We also went to our first spring training game in Clearwater. We had great seats but got Joe Blanton as the starting pitcher. We had 80% chance of getting one of the 4 aces, and we got the 5th wheel. Not that anything is wrong with Joe, he's just not one of the star pitchers. Oh well. Here are some photos for your enjoyment.

Immature Wood Stork

Great Crested Flycatcher

Red-shouldered Hawk

Limpkin - usually very shy. This one was feeding on snails in mid-day (hence the glare)

Here is the Limpkin close-up. First with the snail in shell, then with the snail out of the shell. I don't know how it manages to get the snail out of the shell with only it's beak as a tool.

Have You Noticed?

Have you noticed anything different over the past week? I have noticed these things:

1. No need for a flashlight at the dog park after work - sunlight is lingering until close to 6 PM
2. My nose hairs aren't freezing in the morning - temperatures are above 16 degrees (which is my nose hair threshold)
3. My ears are treated to song - Cardinals, Song Sparrows, Goldfinches are starting to sing

It all happened this past week. Feb 7th is when I noted the sunlight at the dog park. Feb 10th is the date that I noted the songs in my yard. And Feb 12th is when I noticed no frozen nose hairs. By George, I think we have turned the corner toward spring.

I have also been reading Pete Dunne's book - Prairie Spring which is very entertaining as is all of his work and also informative. You should definitely read that book before spring arrives. It is definitely good late winter reading. I learned from the book that Groundhog Day is the midpoint between the winter solstice and spring equinox which makes the observations listed above seem on target. I know that I should have known about Groundhog Day from elementary school, but some things just need to be spelled out to me.

Correction to Previous Post

I think that I have another life bird through utter stupidity and by having my camera handy. I previously posted 2 photos of Savannah Sparrows in MLK Day . After reading Don Frieday's post on the CMBO View from the Cape blog, I think that the lighter bird is actually Vesper Sparrow. Don writes in Gull Food and Quiz Photo Answer on Feb 1st that the chestnut shoulder patch and white tail feathers are usually not visible, but the eye ring is apparent. My bird definitely has the eye ring. I'm changing my eBird to Vesper Sparrow! Thanks Don.

Stupid Mistake Results in 3 Life Birds

Last week, while Philly was being inundated with 16 inches of snow, I was in Seattle for a 2 day meeting at Microsoft. I left on Monday evening for a Tuesday and Wednesday event with my boss and another coworker. We all agreed to fly home on the non-stop 8:45 AM flight rather than take the red-eye. That would have been great except yours truly booked her 8:45 AM flight on Friday instead of Thursday like everyone else. Let's recap: leave Monday for a 2 day meeting, return the day after the meeting. Oops. I made the best of it. Thankfully, I brought the binoculars along. Unfortunately, I didn't lug the camera equipment. Photos below are from my Android phone.

Being at an event on the Microsoft campus is like being held captive for 2 days. They tell you where to stay. They pick you up in a shuttle at 8:00 AM. They serve you continental breakfast, meetings, lunch, meetings, and even serve you cocktails and dinner on campus. They never actually tell you not to leave, but they make a big deal about how difficult it is to get back into the building if you go outside. That crap only lasted the first day with me. By lunch time on the second day, I looked at one of the Microsoft gals and said "I'm going outside, and you can't stop me". And I meant it. Out I went. Looked up and immediately saw 2 Bald Eagles circling Building 31! Then I meandered around the building trying not to look like a freak with binoculars. One of the Microsoft guys said: "This is Microsoft. You can't possibly look any geekier than anybody else." He had a good point. It felt great to be outdoors in 55 degree weather while everyone else was being blasted by the snow.

After everyone else left Seattle on schedule (Thursday), I made lemonade out of lemons. I rented a car and headed down to the water to see some birds. I stopped at the pier where the ferries come and go. That is where I got my first life bird of the trip (remember, this is shot with a cell phone):

Glaucous-winged Gull

Notice the gray wing tips and pink legs. No other gull has this. He was my buddy for about 20 minutes. He was calling in a friend when I snapped the photo.

I also noticed 2 little alcids floating around the docks. Their ID is a mystery to me. I think they are Marbled Murrelets, but they could be Pigeon Guillemots. I marked Marbled Murrelets in eBird due to the black heads. This got me my second life bird of the trip but I am willing to change it if someone can decipher the identity based on this lousy photo.


After about 20 minutes of the docks, I headed north along the Puget Sound and stopped at a few little spots then made it to Discovery Park. This park sits on a point of land that juts out into the Sound. It has a lot of nice trails, beautiful scenery, a beach, a military base, and a waste water treatment plant all wrapped up into one park. I got a lot of great birds here including 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, Barrow's Goldeneye, Red-throated Loon, Hawk being mobbed by Crows, White-winged Scoter, dozens of Kinglets (both) and Yellow-rumped Warblers and my 3rd life bird of the day - Mew Gull. In addition, I got to watch 3 Sea Otters play around close to shore and 4 Harbor Seals pop their heads up to look at the person with binoculars. Pretty cool. Here are some scenery shots from the day:

Lighthouse at Discovery Park - Cascade mountains in the backgroud

Mount Ranier in the distance

The famous Space Needle with modern art in the foreground

To top off a great day, I got to stay with Maureen and Barbara on spur-of-the-moment, even though Barbara just had ankle surgery on Tuesday. What a terrific couple of friends.