Photo on Another Blog

One of my photos made the Cape May Bird Observatory blog this week.  Scroll down to Tuesday Oct 25^th:

http://cmboviewfromthecape.blogspot.com/

OK, so it’s not a bird, but it’s still one of my photos!

Oh, did I mention that the weathermen predict 5 - 7 inches of SNOW tomorrow?  Oy vay.

It Looks Just Like the Stuffed One!

If I heard that once, I heard that a hundred times today.  What a difference binoculars make.  Today, Deb, Jay and Brendan joined us at Higbee beach for an incredible day of birding.  We loaned Deb and Jay some good binoculars and viola, we couldn't stop them from looking at birds.  Exclamations such as "wow, look how RED they are regarding Robins, and "it looks just like Brendan's stuffed one" regarding Downy Woodpecker and other birds just kept pouring out of Deb's mouth - really loudly.  So loud that she had the rest of the birders were quite amused.

There were thousands (yes, thousands) of Yellow-rumped Warblers today.  They were literally everywhere.  In the sky. In the trees. On the ground.  In the bushes.  Everywhere.  Along with Ruby and Golden-crowned Kinglets.

The newly hooked birders also saw birds that were completely new to them such as this very tame Yellow-billed Cuckoo:

He even landed on the path in front of us which I have never seen a cuckoo do:

And this Blackpoll Warbler that made a meal out of the Porcelainberry to the enjoyment of the new birders:

We saw 2 immature Bald Eagles over the fields today but still no good photo:

Lastly, there were Brown Creepers today (alive):

I wish that Deb's photos were ready for the blog post. They are really great!  Maybe next time.

Joy Turns to Sadness

Just moments after the last posting, I took Roxy outside for a walk around the building and found this Brown Creeper lying on the sidewalk.  I could have cried.  Another victim of collision with building or car during migration.  The Brown Creeper is a great little bird to see in fall and winter around our area as they creep up the tree trunks picking the bark for bugs.  Their tails are stiff like woodpeckers to hold them upright on the tree trunk.  Now his whole body is stiff :-(   Here is a link to AllAboutBirds.org to learn more about these birds.

This little guy just didn't make it. . . Sorry for the downer.  A proper burial will be held tonight in my yard with wake tomorrow night at Cherry Street Tavern.

Picture-In-Picture

For the first time in awhile, I am really excited to be sitting in my office in Center City Philadelphia.  Don't get me wrong, I would rather be out birding somewhere, but I have to pay the bills somehow!  The reason that I am excited is because I stumbled upon an idea to add wall art to my office using big artwork.  I then stumbled upon Megaprint.com after a quick Google search.  The result is that I now look up from my desk and see this:

It's 6 foot wide by 3 foot high which is what I needed to fill that awful, blank, white wall.  What makes this vinyl banner so great for me is that I took the photo!  Every time I look up from my desk, I am reminded of the day that I got to spend with the Black Skimmers on Cape May's beach (read the post here) and it makes me smile. 

I should tell you that the sales support at Megaprint was great.  I emailed Alex back and forth a few times asking about wallpaper, which was my original idea.  He suggested the vinyl which is a better option for my office.  He also reviewed the quality of the photo and suggested the 6' x 3' size to fit the resolution of the photo.

Gotta go take a phone call from another client but don't worry - I have something nice to look at until I can get outside again.

Yellow-rumps Abound

The winds and weather were not that great for migration this weekend. Kind of a bust for the hawk watchers and the Big Sit birders at Cape May Point. Sunday morning at Higbee proved to be really quiet. We did manage to see our first Towhees of the season and a nice Nashville warbler, but really nothing else. We were home by 9 AM.

Monday morning was a bit different. I started out at the canal and immediately noticed dozens of birds flying north overhead - chipping all the while. Some landed briefly before taking off northbound again. Ruby and Golden Crowned Kinglets were mixed in with the Yellow-rumped Warblers. It soon became apparent that the dozens were turning into hundreds as they never stopped flowing overhead. Yellow-rumps were all over the place but mostly in the air. Tom Johnson is the official counter for the Morning Flight. He recorded 2000+ Yellow-rumps before 10 AM so you can imagine how many flew north, past Higbee throughout the day. Coincidentally, the Villas is north of the Morning Flight location . . .

I was in Cape May on Monday for work, not pleasure (wink, wink). I finally left the house at 4 PM after meeting with a client and doing some more work on the computer.  I was all set to do a quick walk on the beach with the dog and then head home but I never made it to the beach.  I was inundated with warblers and kinglets as soon as I stepped into the yard.  Yellow-rumps were literally everywhere flitting from every tree and bush in our yard and our neighbors' yards. They used any and every perch they could find to launch themselves into the air to catch bugs.  Here are some photos which don't even include the Black-throated Green Warbler and the Kinglets.

Yellow-rumped Warber sitting in our yard

Different Yellow-rump, same yard

Yellow-rump sitting on our dilapidated fence

Yellow-rump sitting on the driver's door of the Subaru!

Yellow-rump chowing down on a bug

These are all presumably different birds.  There were at least 20 at any given moment in our yard.  How is that for Yellow-rump overkill?

Our favorite AZ Birds

I'll bore you with pics of our favorite Arizona Birds. We were golfing at Gold Canyon Golf Resort today, and we're on the tee box, which is elevated. As were standing there, this guy peeks his head over.

You gotta love the roadrunner.

and here is Gambel's Quail.

and last but not least, the cactus wren.
That was today, yesterday we went to the Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch. A fantastic park, lots of birds, nice trails, restrooms, water fountains. and some warblers. Taking pictures of warblers is probably the hardest shot to get. They're in constant motion, jumping from branch to branch so quick, you immediately lose your focus, lose the bird, you get the point. So I took almost 30 pictures of wilson's warbler and black-throated gray. We get home that night and it's like playing "Where's Waldo.". Tara is leaning over my shoulder, asking where the bird is in 99.9% of the pictures. As follows:

Where's Wilson? Finally, after slogging thru all my pics, one decent one, not great, but decent.

So that's the report from Scottsdale.

Lori and Tara

Arizona, the land of no rain

Tara and I are out in Scottsdale this week for golf and birding. Sunday we visited We-Ko-Pa Golf Club. Saw some typical AZ birds, cactus wren, roadrunner (tara's fav), Verdin. Best spot was a bobcat on one of the par 3 holes. We've never seen one in the wild, very cool. Back at the hotel after dinner, we're walking out of the lobby and hear parrots. What? Yes, parrots. Rosy-faced Lovebirds evidently are colonizing the Phoenix area. There were about 4 of them, I'll try and get some pics, was too dark at 6:30pm.

Monday we went to Granite Reef Recreation Area, saw about 34 species. Tons of yellow-rumps, the "audubon" variety. Believe it or not, I actually got a picture, and I think it's somewhat in focus, which is a minor miracle(click it.) Other highlights: Says Phoebe, Lincoln Sparrow, White-crowned sparrow. I'm gonna publish this now cause Tara is gonna kill me, I keep previewing this post and can't find my way back .

Eagles

The Philadelphia E-A-G-L-E-S blew a 17 point lead and lost to the 49ers yesterday in really bad form but the real Eagles - the Bald type really put on a show over the weekend. I personally had a "touchdown" (6 eagles at Higbee beach) and "extra point" (1 more eagle soaring over RT 55 on my way home) on Sunday.  I saw 4 eagles in the sky at the same time which I have not seen since I was in Seattle 5 years ago.  Here are some photos - not as good as the warbler photos from the last post.

Juvenile Bald Eagle

(click to enlarge)

Notice that this bird does not have the white head and tail but it has that giant beak!  Also notice how the wings are held straight across when soaring which is a good way to tell that it is an eagle and not a vulture.  Vultures hold their wings up in the air forming a "V" which makes it easy to remember - V is for Vulture (not Vodka!)

Here is a series of photos showing an adult Bald Eagle harassing an Osprey to drop it's fish.  The Osprey eventually dropped the fish but the Eagle never got it.  The fish is laying somewhere in the marsh. The photos are really far away but I think you get the gist of it.

Check out CMBO's View from the Cape to read another account of eagles this weekend and see Tony Leukering's photo of an adult Bald Eagle that passed close to the lighthouse.

All Righty Then

The weather finally broke around here which means that the birds are finally on the move south.  Not only are the birds flocking into south Jersey, but so are the birders.  I have a few blog posts in my head after the past 2 days, but I thought I would post this one today which deals with photography and photographers.

I have been using my camera and new lens for a while now and still don't really know what I'm doing.  Yes, I get good photos sometimes, but that doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing.  Well I finally got up the nerve to ask a couple of photographers that I have been hanging around with if they would help me.  Gerry and John obliged and gave me some tips yesterday.  Gerry gave me some more tips today.

Here are some of the results from an amazing warbler experience this afternoon.  I literally could have touched the Cape May warbler.  I shot about 60 photos of this bird over the course of an hour - along with another 200+ of the Black-throated Blue, Blackpoll and Parula.  I still deleted most of the shots but at least I got a few really good ones.

Cape May Warbler - notice the cheek pattern which is the diagnostic field mark

Blackpoll Warbler - notice the eye line and wing bars which are diagnostic field marks

Black-throated Blue Warbler - notice, well the black throat and blue color

Northern Parula - notice the olive patch on his back which is diagnostic field mark

I must tell you that these photos are not cropped by much.  I only cropped them to remove leaves and other distracting features.  The Parula is the best shot that I have ever taken of this species - thanks to Gerry.  Here  is another shot of the Parula hanging upside down which is typical for this active little bugger.

Notice the little piece of debris that just fell out of the bird's mouth and the way the sun lit up the belly of this bird.  Just a great shot if I do say so myself.

The birds just didn't want to leave this particular tree. Here are a couple of shots with multiple species in the same frame.

Cape May Warbler and Parula working the crux of the tree

Blackpoll Warbler replaced the Parula - there must have been something yummy there

Hoping for more good stuff tomorrow.  I have another story from Friday that I will post if tomorrow doesn't pan out.Let me know what you think of the photos by posting a comment.

hot spot in Ivyland

My dream retirement home would be a lovely house that backs up to green space, and we can sit on our back porch and watch warblers flit in and out of the trees. Well, this morning in Ivyland boro, a little bit of a dream come true. Tara is looking out the window, and swears she sees redstarts in the trees. Earlier in the week, she said the same thing, and when I got home and looked at the birds, they were yellow rumped warblers, so that was Monday or Tuesday of this week. So this morning I get out the binocs, and sure enough, that was a redstart. And, wait, what's that? Red-eyed Vireo. And, huh? Oh, just magnolia warbler. And what's that warbler tara asks? No, too big for a warbler, oh, just a scarlet tanager. And there goes a yellow warbler, and more redstarts, and the vireo really likes our magnolia tree. There's a flycatcher up in the oak. Don't ask, have no idea which one. That was our morning, I was an hour late for work, watching vireos and warblers and tanagers, and a sharpie flew by for good measure. Linda always tells me to look up, you never know what you'll see in your backyard. That's 49 total species in our backyard, with no deep woods around us. That's pretty cool for around here.
Fabulous way to start your day. Next week, Arizona!
Lori

Olive-sided Flycatcher - # 644

I got life bird # 644 today thanks to sticking it out on an unfavorable day and sticking with generous, friendly birders.  We have been birding alot in Cape May this year since we bought the houses in the Villas.  We have been seeing the same birders out all summer too.  We have been running into a friendly and generous (birdingly generous, that is) couple almost every outing.  He is French with great French accent.  She has a distinctive Philly accent (trust me, I know about those).  Both of them always engage us in conversation and also go out of their way to point out birds.

Today, they pointed out #644 - Olive-sided Flycatcher - to me and Diane after most other birders were gone to other locations.  Photographic conditions were terrible again with overcast skies but here is a pretty good photo of the flycatcher. Nothing sexy, but it does show the diagnostic "vest".

Here is another photo showing the Olive-sided and a Pewee in the same tree.  Unbelievable luck that the Pewee showed up because the Pewee is the flycatcher that is most mistaken for the Olive-sided.

OK, now that you are thoroughly bored, how about some eye candy.  Male Yellow warbler. Us bird nerds nicknamed this bird "Ray" because they are always like a ray of sunshine when you see them.  I finally got a decent photo of one today after years of trying.  Once again, this is the result of very a couple of very nice birders.  This time, it was a couple of older gentlemen from Rhode Island.  And this time it was me and Diane that were being "generous" by pointing out the Palm warblers and the 3 Yellow warblers along the dune path at the State Park.

I Can't Remember Seeing This Many Birds

In one day that is!  Granted, it wasn't like yesterday where the warblers where dripping from the trees and running around at my feet like that Black-throated Green Warbler.  But . . . there were multitudes of birds today - all flying NORTH across Higbees Beach fields.  Birds were streaming by 2, 3, and sometimes dozens at a time. 

We showed up at 6:45 and noticed dozens of birders standing in the first fields all looking up, but without binoculars.  They were just standing there looking.  Weird.  When we got into the field, we understood what was going on.  Birds were flying past in numbers that I have never seen.  All flying NORTH.  Not really landing in trees for more than a second or two, if at all.  It was something to witness.  Something to talk about later.  But not really something to use binoculars for.

There were alot of Parulas, Redstarts and Red-eyed Vireos. Our first Palm warblers of the season came through today (Mom - get ready to see them at your house soon). We also got to see a few Tennessee Warblers and even got to see a Tennessee sitting next to a Nashville (get it) in the same tree.  Barbara and Diane got to see a Wilson's warbler - I missed it.  We all got a good look at a Black-billed Cuckoo. I got terrible photos of it which are not worth including in this post. 

Speaking of photos - notice that there aren't any photos to go along with the words in this post.  That is because it was impossible for me to get photos of this spectacle with my camera and lens setup. 

It was pretty awesome to witness.  We departed at 9 AM because we had work to do - tear the siding off of the green house in preparation for new roof, siding and windows coming in the next few weeks.  Rain set it after we were done with our chore, so no more birding for the day.  Hopefully tomorrow will also bring lots of birds and better photographic opportunities. 

Fabulous Forecast!

I showed up in Cape May tonight at 6 PM and went straight to the Cape May Bird Observatory because I got 1400 text messages today about how many warblers were around.  I am glad that I did it.  I saw the following warblers:
Yellow, Black and White, Blackburnian, Hooded, Cape May, Northern Parula, Common Yellow Throat, Magnolia, Tennessee, Redstart, and this Black-throated Green:

I also saw this Yellow Bellied Flycatcher:

More tomorrow!  Should be gooooood!

BIRD is a 4 Letter Word

Birding has changed alot since the advent of the Internet and Smarphones. It used to be a mystery each time we went out birding - what could we see today, are we at the right place at the right time, does anybody else bird here? The best we would know about a certain birding location would be that another person showed up with binoculars. Or, it was mentioned in a birdwatching magazine.

For instance, Connie and I went to Newfoundland many years ago on a 3 week camping trip - in August. Who knew that we should have been there in June for more birds? We also went to New Mexico one year in May which you would think would be good for birding, but we didn't know where to go so we didn't see that many birds.

Nowadays, I simply walk around with an iPhone and get text messages and Tweets telling me about great birds being seen in the area at any given moment. The problem is that the texts and tweets come in 4 letter bird code and half of the time, I can't figure them out. Take last week's text : GWWA and BWWA at Higbee. Or this one : MAFR heading over bay. Or Adult ROST flew west past Coral Ave. Luckily, I can figure some of them out with a little concentration but even more to the point, I can use my iPhone to look it up! Golden-winged Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, Magnificent Frigatebird and adult Roseate Tern all make sense.

I have been the grateful recipient of the text messages, tweets, and Birdseye information until this weekend when I was finally the giver of information when I spotted this Mourning Warbler under the pavilion at Cape May Hawk Watch on Saturday afternoon.


Admittedly, I thought is was a Connecticut Warbler until I alerted other birders who pointed out the difference in the eye ring. I then texted "MOWA at start of trail in State Park" and was shocked when about a dozen other birders flocked (get it?) to the spot to see the bird. Ah, technology.

Skimmers Up Close and Personal

Black Skimmers have to be one of my favorite birds of all time. I can remember the first time that I saw a group of these birds skimming the surface of the water in the back bay of Chincoteague Island. I could not believe my eyes. These beautiful birds are the only (or one of the only) birds that has a longer bottom bill than the top. They fly low to the water with their mouths open and put the bottom bill in the water as they fly. Their mouths snap shut if the bottom bill touches something in the water - hopefully a fish. It is pretty neat to see.

There were hundreds of Skimmers on the beach in Cape May this weekend which is unusual. It gave me an opportunity to photograph them up close as they flew around and rested on the beach. Enjoy. Remember to click on any image to enlarge it.

Solo Flight

The whole Gang

Cropped - I thought this looked cool

Youngster practicing his skimming on the puddle

At rest on the beach - look how narrow the bill is

I think this is the advantage of being at the shore often now. I have time to walk the beach with my camera to get some decent shots. I hope to have more for you later in the week. Post a comment if you like the skimmers.

Mother Nature This Week

So, we had an earthquake, a hurricane, and some tornadoes in Philly this week. Pretty unusual for our part of the world and certainly unusual back-to-back. The earthquake was really freaky. I was in my office in Center City and didn't know what was going on for a few seconds. At first, I thought it was Roxy under my chair moving around but then my coworkers started getting out of their cubes and looking at me like - "What do we do? It's an earthquake!". We all stood outside like dopes for 20 minutes (which is the opposite of what you are supposed to do in an earthquake) before returning to work.

The weather people sure played up Hurricane Irene to the point that Cape May was evacuated, Septa stopped running, etc, etc. and it turned out not to be that bad. Barbara, Di and I headed down to the shore on Sunday to see if the shacks were still standing - which they were - and to check out the "storm birding" scene. Not familiar with storm birding? Well, it is when birders rush out after a big storm to see rarities. It is a big deal with hurricanes since they tend to blow tropical birds far north so rare sightings are quite common.

Check out the scene at the Concrete Ship at Cape May Point. This is 2:30 PM on Sunday with 45 MPH gusts and sustained winds of something like 25 MPHs which sandblasted the skin off of my legs. That is why we are all huddled together next to the Sunset Grille (great grilled cheese sandwiches btw). Sadly, we can no longer deny being the nerdiest of nerds after seeing this photo.



Our deniability is also out the window since this scene was made public on both the Cape May Bird Observatory blog (that's me in the front looking through the scope, Di to my left in the red and Barbara to my right in the navy) AND The Philadelphia Inquirer (that's Barbara on the extreme left in the photo).

We got to see the unidentified large swift and all of the terns mentioned in the blog post. We were too late for the petrel and the tropicbirds though.

Brown Booby persists on the channel marker. I wonder when that bird will go south?

Now, About That Booby . . .

You didn't think that I would leave that last sentence hanging there without more about the Booby did you? Sam phoned me to tell me about the Brown Booby - a rare bird for the north - that was sighted sitting on a channel marker in Jarvis Sound. Then he called back to tell me that the bird was sitting on marker #475 - to be exact. I immediately asked our captain if we would be passing that marker and that a rare bird was sitting on it. The captain told me that he saw the bird on the morning trip and yes, we would be passing it.

Here is the calm, idyllic scene.

Jarvis Sound - typical Saturday in August

The Starlight boat, which is closest to the marker in the above photo, is the sister boat to the one we were on. I was standing on the top deck photographing the bird both on the way out and the way in. Eye level, up close views of the bird! And thanks to Captain Chris for slowing the boat down when we were next to the marker so that we all got great looks and some good photos. Enjoy.

Brown Booby on Channel Marker 475.

This is an adult bird told by the white belly, yellow beak and feet.

He sat there as if it were perfectly normal for him to be there. In fact, he was still there today (Tuesday). I hope he gets home soon although its been quite fun to write about boobies!

Question Us? You Have Some Nerve!

Remember the post about finding Davie's Lake? Scroll down and take a quick refresher. I'll wait
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. . .
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. . .

OK, are you back. Well, what I didn't tell you (because I didn't think it was post worthy) is that we saw 33 Pelicans flying north along the bay too. The first group had 28, then 1 straggler, then 4 more. My math says 33. Anyway, we entered it into eBird along with the other sightings including 52 Snow Egrets, etc, etc. A few days later, Barbara gets an email from an eBird guy asking if she was sure that she saw Pelicans. Pelicans! Ummm yes, we know what Pelicans look like. They are pretty unmistakable. They look like this:

1 Pelican

+

4 Pelicans

+

28 Pelicans
=
33 Pelicans

So Barbara emails the guy back and says something kind of sarcastic like. Ummm, I may not be an expert birder, but I know what a Pelican looks like. Yes, I'm sure we saw Pelicans.

Fast forward 2 weeks ahead to this Saturday. We read a good amount of postings stating that the southbound migration was picking up and that Tom Johnson was back on duty at the Higbee Beach Dredge Spoil Dike doing his official counting so we decided to make that our destination. We expected a crowd of birders to be there, but when Lori, Barbara and I arrived, we were #3, 4 and 5 on the Dike (lots of sophomore humor can go here). You can see alot from up on the dike including the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, the entrance to the canal, and part of the bay along with woods and marsh. Tom and the other guy were busy calling out and recording passing birds (which looked like little bullets to us). The birdnerds were looking at anything that moved and wracking up a good list thanks to the aid of experts.

During a lull in the action, Barbara starts to tell us about the eBird guy who questioned the Pelican sighting and do we believe that someone would question something like Pelicans as if they could be mistaken for something else. With that, Tom starts giggling and says "uh, this is the guy that questioned the sighting"' and points to the other guy! Oh, just great. The guy's name is Sam and we see his name all over the tweets, texts, and alerts about unusual sightings around Cape May. Sam starts giggling too and apologizes to Barbara saying that he hit the "send" button to soon and really meant to ask if she was sure that she was at Davie's Lake since 33 Pelicans is a really good sighting for that area. Well, we all had a good laugh and from that point forward, all birds that flew past the dike were Pelicans!

We even invited Sam to go out on a whale watching boat with us later that afternoon since we had 2 extra tickets. I gave him my phone number (again, lots of jibes can be inserted here) and asked him to let us know if he could use the tickets. Well, he called back to say thanks for the offer but that he was going out on another boat to verify a sighting of a rare Brown Booby (more sophomoric humor here) that was spotted in Jarvis Sound sitting on a channel marker.