Just Remember It

Sorry I haven't had my camera out lately. It is difficult to manage the camera, binoculars, and two dogs on daily walks.  I really miss having the camera along.  Especially in this new era of eBird when any rare sighting is questioned and photographic proof is the best way to confirm the sighting. 

Take this week for instance.  Thursday morning was the best birding morning that I've had this season.  It was a beautiful morning after 2 days of dreary rain.  Birds were sure to be moving through.  Plus, I had an appointment in Mt. Airy at 10 AM which meant that I could take my time on the morning walk at Pennypack Trust.  There was alot of bird action at the beginning of the trail - Baltimore Oriole, Blackpolls (again), Kingbirds, a Parula singing and flitting about.  Then, a bird popped into a small tree just in front of me.  Kind of vireo shaped but smaller and browner.  I knew it was something different, so I sketched it and made notes of color and field marks on my notepad.  I even had time to look up possibilities while it bounced around the tree.  Through the process of elimination, I came up with Swainson's Warbler.  Rare in our region but it couldn't have been anything else.  No camera.

Next bird outing was Saturday with Lori at Peace Valley park.  We really worked for the birds that morning.  Hiking almost all of the trails around the nature center only getting a bird here and a bird there.  Still no mobs of warblers.  But then, at the end of our walk we heard a mob of crows going ape shit.  I knew they were trying to get rid of a hawk or owl, so we dashed up the trail for a look.  There sat a Great Horned Owl in a mess of vines being tormented and dive bombed by a bunch of crows and Blue Jays.  No camera.

On our way back to the car we finally saw the Yellow-billed Cuckoo that everyone else said was flying back and forth across the bridge.  Also had very close up looks at those beautiful Cedar Waxwings sitting in a Sequoia tree. Yes, you read that right. There are 2 Sequoia trees growing at the edge of Lake Galena in Pennsylvania.  Another guy was getting great photos of that scene but not me.  I'll just have to commit it to memory (or blog about it and read it to myself later).

Next up - Potter County trip for Memorial Day weekend.  I'll pack the camera for sure.

It's Madame Foreperson to you

Why am I posting my jury duty memoir to a birding blog?  Because this can only happen to me.  I was picked to serve on a civil case in Montgomery County this week.  The case was typical of what you would assume - a car accident that resulted in the plaintiff alleging back injury.  The part that can only happen to me?  The cause of the car accident was that the defendant was distracted from driving because she saw a woman running across the road chasing an injured Turkey. I am not kidding. I can't make this stuff up. 

I was juror #4 yesterday listening to testimony about back injury, herniated disks, injections, pre-existing conditions, loss of sex drive, you name it.  All I could think about was, what happened to the turkey?  Did the woman catch it and take it to the rehab?  Did it recover?

Today, I was promoted from juror #4 to foreperson when we went into deliberations.  I seemed to be the only person on the jury who had served before and wasn't afraid of the foreperson responsibility. Not guilty and no monetary award was our verdict.

Oh, and I had a Baltimore Oriole and Cedar Waxwing in the yard this morning. Cool.

We Weren't Last

But we were damned close to last place in the World Series of Birding.  The Seniors beat us.  The teams that did only the county beat us. The team that did only Ocean City beat us.  All of the school kids beat us. But we didn't come in last place.  A few teams actually had fewer birds than we had.

First, let's say that the winning teams (yes, there was a tie for first place) had 228 species which is off from other years when they had over 230.  Now, let's tell you that one of the winning teams failed to see White-breasted Nuthatch - a common bird that we have at our feeders.  They also failed to get Cattle Egret which you can normally get at 80 MPH while driving down the Parkway.  (click here to see the results)

Just like the winners, we failed to see the Nuthatch and the Cattle Egret.  We also missed 110 other birds that they got.  We ended up with 116 for the day.  We started our day at 4:30 AM and ended at 8:30 PM when we turned our list in at the firehouse.  We had alot of fun and saw some great birds including a life bird for me - Gull-billed Tern.  Everyone contributed in spotting birds and keeping the day fun.

Next year, we have agreed to do it again but stay in Cape May County. There will be less driving, and we will still have a shot at 140ish birds.  I think we can get 130.  We are also going to get T-shirts and sponsors.

Here They Come!

To quote Tom Petty - "The way-ay-ting is the hardest part".  Well, the waiting seems to be over.  Warblers are finally moving through our little part of the world.  This morning, I saw 7 Blackpoll Warblers at Lemon Hill.  That is more than I have seen in total all of my years of birding.  Plus, Connie and I had a singing Blackpoll at Pennypack Trust last night. And that needs to be added to the Blackpoll warbler from Higbee beach on Saturday. 

We met several birders who said that this is unusual.  One guy told us that he lives in Allentown area and they call the Blackpoll warbler "the kiss of death" because they are the last warblers to migrate. When you see Blackpolls, then migration is over.  Well, not this year.  It seems that they are coming through earlier than usual.

Along with the Blackpolls, Barbara and I had the first Black-throated Blue warblers, Parulas, plenty of Yellow-rumps, a lingering Palm, and a beautiful male Cape May warbler this morning.

Get your binoculars and get out there!

Did I mention that we entered the World Series of Birding?  Seems like we should have entered a regional competition and won it in order to be eligible for the "big day".  But, no.  We just signed up.  Any schmuck can enter apparently.  We decided to limit our day's effort to just Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic counties in order to cut down the driving.  We made an initial site survey last Saturday to test the driving and I now think that it is possible for us to get 100+ species in one day effort by concentrating on the following Hotspots:

• Turkey Point - Glades
• Heislerville WMA
• Stimpson's Beach
• Jake's Landing Road
• Reed's Beach
• Belleplain State Park
• Villas WMA
• Cape May Point State Park - Hawk Watch and trails
• The Meadows - Nature Conservancy
• Concrete Ship
• Higbee Beach
• Rhea Farm (Beanery)
• Nummy Island

It seems like alot, but some of these sites are concentrated in Cape May and do not require alot of driving.  Stay tuned.

Nerd Squared

Taking the nerd part of our name to new heights here lately.
We are birdwatchers - nerd strike one
We submit our sightings electronically - nerd strike two

Two of our submissions from Belize are under scrutiny by eBird.  We are emailing descriptions and photos to the guy almost daily.  The 2 submissions under question are Sparrow which we saw with our guide Eric and identified as Botteri's Sparrow and a hawk that we saw on Ambergris Caye that sat on a telephone pole and baffled us for more than 15 minutes.  Luckily, I have photos of both birds which I sent to the "auditor".  The sparrow came back as Lincoln's Sparrow which the guy says hasn't been seen in that pahe rt of Belize since 2003 and he was pretty excited about the sighting.

Barbara and I spent a long time staring and photographing and trying to identify the hawk on the telephone pole.  Diane and I spent even longer staring at the computer screen and the field guide trying to identify the hawk from the photos.  We used 2 field guides.  Birds of Belize by Lee Jones which is rated the best guide for the country, and another guide that covers all of Central America.  We finally settled on Great Black Hawk (immature) due to field marks and process of elimination of all other species.  The auditor didn't like that submission stating that only one Great Black Hawk had been recorded on Ambergris Caye and could it possibly have been a Common Black Hawk which, by the its very name, is common in the area.  Once again, I sent photos.  His response was really, really nerdy and fascinating and exciting.  He said that his second review of the photos lead him to believe it was Broad-winged Hawk - which is b-o-r-i-n-g EXCEPT that only one of those have ever been seen on Ambergris.  Then, he asked if he could send my photos to Lee Jones - that's right, the guy who wrote the field guide. 

Oh, and if that is all not nerdy enough for you.  Here is nerd strike three - the PhillyBirdNerds are entering the World Series of Birding this year.  Yup. The biggest gathering of nerdiness outside of the computer expo.  To make matters worse, the PBNs are using technology including eBird reports, mapping tools, and "apps" on our iPhones and iPads (yup, we have iPads but no iTampons). 

Overwhelmingly nerdy.  More about the World Series of Birding in coming days.

First Time Sightings

I was so overwhelmed with the number of new birds that we saw in Belize last week, that I started to think about how I would remember them.  I started to think about some first time sighting that I remember often or when I see the same bird again. 

To that end, I have added a new "page" to the blog called "Total Life List" so that you can see my total list.  The interesting thing is that it lists the bird and location of the first sighting.  You will need to actually look at the blog to see this list, not just read the email alert for this posting.

For instance, I have seen hundreds of Northern Gannets (#6 on the list), but the first time that I recorded that species was in Witless Bay Newfoundland.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  Connie and I drove out to a remote little park, walked through the sheep paddy to the edge of a high cliff overlooking the North Atlantic ocean.  There were hundreds of Northern Gannets flying over our heads and around a see stack island that had broken away from the main cliff.  The birds were nesting on that sea stack.  It was like being in an episode of Planet Earth on Discovery Channel.  Awesome.  Now, when I see a Northern Gannet off of the Jersey shore, I conjure up that wonderful day in my mind.

Whip-poor-will #115 seen and photographed at Fackahatchee Park along the Tami Ami Trail in Florida.  The bird sat motionless and camouflaged on a fallen branch just off of the boardwalk path.  Our friends Cee and Sarah were with us on that trip and pointed out the bird to me.  I set up the camera and tripod to get a photo.  Snap, snap, snap of the shutter just when the bird yawned with wide pink mouth.  Awesome.  It was so long ago that the photos are not in digital form but they are mounted and displayed at our house. 

I'll definitely remember the Fork-tailed Flycatcher #579 from this recent trip.  We were waiting in line to cross the river in the tour van.  The river is crossed by loading 3-4 cars onto a barge which is hand cranked across the river by 2 guys. Passengers must exit the vehicles and stand along the rail of the barge during the crossing for "safety".  Barbara and I got out of the van to look around when all of a sudden the bird with outrageously long tail flew across the road right in front of us.  I immediately banged on the windsheild of the van yelling something about "scissor tail, scissor tail".  2 Fork-tail Flycatcher, not Scissor-tails flitted and sat in the field for us all to gawk at.  Here is a photo, not mine to show you why I would remember this encounter.

You get the point.  All of this to say that there were so many new birds on this trip that I will probably not be able to remember the events surrounding each one.  I do fondly remember my first Violicious Trogon (photo in last post) seen near Playa Del Carmen Mexico while being chased around the woods by Iguanas - ask Connie, she'll back me up on that.

If you have a fond memory of a bird sighting, please post a comment below.  I'll share those with other readers of the blog.  It will be fun for a change to read a story from someone else.

Dare I Say

We arrived home Sunday night - late.  Eight days in Belize.  178 species of birds.  52 life birds. That's 52 types of birds that I have never seen before plus the other 126 that I already knew but saw more of.  It was almost too much. There, I said it.  Almost too much.  It was really terrific.

I am only posting a few photos of birds that might interest you. Other pretty and interesting birds escaped my camera but not the list. 

How would you like to see this guy at your breakfast table?  Well, we saw him every morning eating the leftover Papaya that Victor put out on the fence. Collared Aracari:

Oh, and his breakfast companion too.

Then there was this bird that made us feel like we might be his breakfast.  Plumbeous Kite:
 

I managed to get a decent photo of Violicious Trogon that hung around the resort.  One of my favorite birds:

Some other birds that I did manage to get photos of are not the kind that people say "ooh" or "wow" about.  Dull or ordinary birds, but I photograph them when I can so that I can study the photos later for better identification and to learn more about them.

More later.  Lots of funny stories from the trip that I will try to post in coming days. 

Ambergris Caye

We planned to snorkel, dive and relax on the beach here in Ambergris Caye.  We couldn't find anything on the Inter-web about birding the island and our Belize field guides are not clear about describing occurrences of birds on the Cayes.. Well, we were pleasantly surprised!

First, there were the 13 Magnificent Frigatebirds soaring over the beach waiting for fish scraps. Then there are the Pelicans and Caspian Terns.  All birds that you would assume on a Caye (caye is what they call island or key down here).  But then, we went bombing around on our golf cart and saw warblers, vireos, orioles, woodpeckers and all kinds of birds that we didn't expect to see on the caye.  Here are some quick photos:

First is Mangrove Warbler.  It is listed as a subspecies of Yellow Warbler in some books.

This is a White-collared Seedeater.  Tiny little bird with a grosbeak beak.

More later.  I'm just happy to have Internet access.  Now back to drinking and laying about.  Suckers . . .

Getting Ready

This may be the last post for a week unless we have Internet access in Belize so I wanted to just check in with a few tidbits.

First, I forgot to tell you about the woodpeckers.  In 2 consecutive days this week, I saw all of the common woodpeckers possible in our area:  Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, Pileated, Flicker and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

Second, the frost bitten Pelicans are ready to be released back to Chesapeake Bay this week according to Heidi at Tri-State Bird Rescue.  She told me that the water is warming up enough for the fish to come to the surface.  This is important for Pelicans as you know if you have ever seen them diving for food.  The Pelicans will be transported from Newark DE to the Chesapeake in a van, then transferred to a boat and taken out to some little island.  Pretty cool.

Third, we are off to Belize for a week. We will start in Ambergris Caye for snorkel/scuba/beach then off to Crystal Paradise Resort near San Ignacio.  We have been to Crystal Paradise a few years ago and loved it.

Anyway, I'll post if I get Internet access.  Stay tuned.

Lebanon - That's No Bologna

The eBird Needs Alerts are driving me a little bit crazy.  I set up the alert to send emails to me every hour for both PA and NJ for birds that I do not have listed in that state and other eBirders are seeing.  So, now I get alerts for birds that I am sure I have seen but probably didn't enter in eBird such as Killdeer.  It shows up every hour on the PA alert.  I've seen plenty of Killdeer in Pennsylvania.

The alert has also been showing Tundra Swan and other ducks and birds at a place called Middle Creek WMA in Lebanon county.  It's kind of on the way to Connie's Mother's house in York.  I decided to detour on Saturday on my way out to York to see what it was all about.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The park is comprised of a loop driving tour around a reservoir lake that spans Lebanon county on the north and Lancaster county on the south.  I entered from the north and drove through grasslands dotted with ponds and about a hundred Bluebird boxes. Most of the boxes had Tree Swallows sitting on top but a few actually had Bluebirds.  I also came across the Tundra Swan (checked that off my alert list), and Savannah Sparrow.  Here is a pretty good photo of the Savannah Sparrow sitting on the fence post:

I drove the entire loop and saw a good smattering of birds.  Got the dogs out of the truck at one trail for a quick walk and ran into a gaggle of Snow Geese, which surprised me. I thought they would have headed north by now.  I took this photo of a dark bird which I thought was a juvenile but it turns out to be what they call a "Dark Adult" goose:

I also saw the resident Bald Eagle.  No Killdeer.  I'll suffer through the alerts a little longer.

March Madness

I feel sorry for all of you who had a bracket pool on the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Two of the Final Four teams are West Virginia and Butler. I never even heard of Butler. Nobody picked these teams to go past the first few rounds.  It has been exciting to follow little teams such as West Virginia and Northern Iowa as they slayed the big names.  It was disappointing to see Villanova knocked out in the second round though.
March has also proven to be an interesting time for bird life at our house.  We had our third surprise March visitor today.  I wasn't blogging when the first surprise showed up in the yard a few years ago - a Woodcock fluttering straight up and down and making peenting sounds (yes, I spelled that right - peent) for courtship.  I also didn't have a camera ready that day, so there are no photos of that day's event.

Last March, you may remember that I saw and photographed a Ring-necked Pheasant hanging around the pond.  Here is a link to that post and a photo refresher:

Well, today March Madness struck again!  I was washing up the breakfast dishes when Connie proclaimed "Oh - My - God.  There's a turkey at the feeder".  And sure enough, there she was pecking at the seed in the driveway as if it was her normal routine.  This is a photo through the kitchen window.  Kind of fuzzy, but I wanted you to see how close she was to the house:

She stayed 10 minutes or so before moving on to the yard.  She even stayed put as Connie went outside, got in the car and drove off.  She even stayed in the yard while I photographed her. 

Which team will win the NCAA tournament?  Its anyone's guess at this point.  Will I have my eyes trained on the yard in March?  Absolutely.  You just never know who will show up next.

2 Memories of the Same Day

2 sisters are at the same place at the same time, doing the same thing on the same day - together, all day and yet be storing very different data in their brains.  Here is an example. Di and I went to Palmyra Cove birding today. Below are 2 accounts of the same day. 

Diane:

I was up early but Linda was already gone to walk the dogs.  Linda made eggs and toast for breakfast.  I had scrambled and Linda had fried.  Then we went to Palmyra Cove for some birdwatching.  I drove the Mini because I wanted to get cheap Jersey gas while we were there. Linda took me the back way all through Abington, Cheltenham past the cemetery, and Philly to the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge - which was open and kept us sitting there for 15 minutes.  That reminded us of the time that we were late going to our grandmother's house when she lived in Cinnaminson and we got stuck at the bridge opening.  When we arrived and told her that the bridge was up she said that she knew.  We asked how she could know that the bridge was up and she said "because I called"  "Called who?" "Called the bridge.  When you were late, I thought the bridge might be up, so I called.  The man said that it just went down so I assumed you would be here soon."  That's Mom Mom for you.

Anyway, we finally got to Palmyra Cove and the police stopped us to say that we had to park in the overflow lot.  We parked and made funny, inappropriate comments about the other people in the parking lot then headed on to the trails. We saw some birds and walked for almost 2 hours. I had to find a bench to rest because my feet and back started to hurt. Then we decided to leave but I had to go to the bathroom in the nature center.  It's really nice inside.  We went to Wawa for the cheap Jersey gas, fountain Diet Cokes and sandwiches to take home for lunch.  I sent Linda in to order me a Wawa premium turkey, lettuce, tomato, pickles, little mayo on wheat, no toast; Lays Kettle Cooked chips with salt and vinegar, and a fountain Diet Coke.  When we left the Wawa, we passed the Savoy Caterers which used to be the Woodbine Inn where I used to go clubbing when I was in high school (don't tell my Mom) with my friends.  Linda said to pull into the Savoy because she saw some gulls in the creek behind the parking lot so we pulled in and decided to eat our sandwiches and look at the gulls.  How funny is that.

Linda:

Di didn't get out of bed until after I took the dogs to the field for a walk so we got a late start birding.  To make matters worse, the bridge was up and delayed us even more.  Then we couldn't get a parking spot in the main lot.

We finally got on the trail and immediately rung up 10 easy species. Then, Di saw something different which turned out to be male and female Eastern Meadowlark.  What a find!  We also got a great look at Swamp Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow (male in great plumage) and Eastern Towhee.  We didn't get Spotted Towhee that has been at the park all winter but we did get Golden-crowned Kinglet.  We ate lunch behind the Savoy to look at gulls but they were just Ring-billed, nothing unusual.

So, months or years from now we'll see a Meadowlark and I'll have to remind Di that she saw one that day when we went to Palmyra Cove.  And we'll see a sign for some Savoy diner somewhere in the world and she'll remind me about the time we sat behind the Savoy-that-used-to-be-the-Woodbine in Jersey eating our sandwiches which were Wawa premium turkey, with cheese which she didn't want ( I ordered it wrong) and gave to me, lettuce, tomato, pickles, little mayo on wheat; Lays Kettle Cooked chips with salt and vinegar because she likes them occassionally, and a fountain Diet Coke. Remember?

Weather Fit for a Duck

I thought Hurricanes and Monsoons were summer weather events.  If yesterday's weather wasn't a hurricane, then what was it?  A Nor'easter?  I guess so.  That didn't stop the bird nerds from going to check out ducks at Lake Galena (Peace Valley Park).  What a couple of idiots.  I packed the spotting scope, binoculars, camera, and iTouch into Lori's Shmellow (big Ford Expedition) and off we went.

It was already raining all day.  By the time we got to the lake it was literally coming down sideways.  There were 3 foot swells and whitecaps on the lake that made finding any ducks nearly impossible.  We parked down by the dam which is where the ducks and gulls like to congregate.  We did manage to see the 100+ Common Mergansers floating around but none of the other ducks reported on eBird.  We headed up to the top of the lake to see if some other ducks were taking shelter up there.  I even made Lori get out of the car and wade through ankle-deep water to get out to the bridge for a better view.  Nothing but Tree Swallows. Nothing.

We got back into the car and headed to Core Creek Park.  The weather got worse. We still didn't see anything.  By the time we headed home roads were flooded, trees were down and the local police were closing roads.  I had 3 detours and no good ducks. 

I guess the point of the story is that we could have stayed home but then we wouldn't have the experience.

Cape May - 59 Degrees and Sunny!

2 more life birds for me today in Cape May.  The first was Eurasian Wigeon. 2 males have been seen for weeks at the Light House pond.  There were more than 50 American Wigeon on the pond with their white foreheads and green heads.  Then there were the two with buffy foreheads against red/maroon heads.  We probably would never have seen them unless I read about them on CMBO's blog and eBird for weeks.  We really concentrated and picked through the others to see them.

The second life bird was Great Cormorant (coooomarant, as we say) at Poverty Beach.  Again, we saw these birds perched on pilings and diving for fish specifically due to the blogs and eBird alerts.  Wow, these birds are huge.  63" wing span (that's as tall as me). The Cormorants were swimming along side Red-throated and Common Loons and Black Scoters.  There was a King Eider reported but we didn't see it.  We would have needed more time or a good scope.

Other highlights include 2 Bald Eagles, a Northern Harrier, 3 Red-tailed Hawks, and close up looks at Red-breasted Merganser and Bufflehead. Of course, no camera with me today.  Oy.

Other birds that we missed which have been reported in Cape May lately are Black-headed Gull and Redhead Ducks. 

GBBC - Results from Rydal

I counted birds on Sat, Sun, Mon last weekend as part of the Great Backyard Birdcount. Frankly, there wasn't anything else to do but shovel and count birds. We totaled 40 inches of snow. Wet, heavy snow.

I had the usual suspects at the feeders plus an American Tree Sparrow. Only the second time that I have seen one at our house in 10 years. Here is a photo that I shot by opening the kitchen door a crack and sticking the lens outside.

I had an amazing morning on Thursday. First, I opened the garage door to get seed for the feeders and found a White-throated Sparrow that spent the night in the garage. I had to let him land on my hand and direct him toward the door because he kept flying against the window to escape. Then I found a Robin in the yard just sitting there with his eyes closed. Poor thing was barely alive. He flew away when Roxy got too close, but I think he's not long for this world. Then after I came back inside all of the birds took off with a whoosh! I looked out to see that one bird did not escape the grasp of the Sharp-shinned Hawk. Circle of life, circle of life. . . All before 7:30 AM.

Great Backyard Bird Count - 2010

It's that time of year again - time for us casual and obsessed birdwatchers alike to count birds in our yards to contribute data on winter (resident) birds in North America.  Here is the description:

"Join the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count by tallying the birds you see at any location during February 12-15. Watch for at least 15 minutes on one or more count days, record the highest number of each species you see at any one time, and enter your checklist at birdcount.org Put your sightings on the map and watch as counts pour in from around the United States and Canada! The count is led by the Cornell Lab, Audubon, and Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada, with sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited."

Here is a link to the official site:  http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ .  If you are a first time "counter" you should sign up today, then enter your sightings over the next few days.  Mom, this includes you.  Dave can download a checklist for you to use.

Let it Snow!

Not much to report from Abington today.  We were on the short end of the "Blizzard of Twenty Ten" here in Abington township with a mere 14 inches of snow.  I had the driveway cleared by 11 AM Saturday. Piece of cake.  Everyone else was texting, calling and emailing about their 26+ inches. 

Meanwhile, our birds were lined up at the feeder just waiting for me to shovel and sprinkle their seeds.  They literally sat in branches a few feet from my head waiting.  Once I put the seed out - whoosh! 40 - 50 birds including 2 dozen juncos, 1 dozen goldfinches, white-throated and song sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers decended on the feeders and have not stopped since. 

We have an addition to our pet family too.  Lucy has become a full time member due to allergies of our friends' 4 year old.  Lucy and Roxy made out fine on their first weekend together.  Roxy is a princess as you know and is having a tough time in the snow.  I put boots on her which lasted about 5 minutes. . .

Oh, did I mention the additional 12 inches of snow forecast for Tuesday night.  Geez.  Makes Florida look better and better.

Southwest Florida Sampler

Finally able to post our trip from Sunday in southwest Florida.  I can't say enough about my iTouch and the new "app" from Cornell Lab called Birdseye.  I mentioned it in previous posts, but it really came in handy this weekend.  I noticed that there were quite a few birds listed in the Punta Gorda area at a hotspot called Bunche Beach.  The couple that we met at Babcock-Webb WMA also mentioned Bunche Beach as a good location.  So we were up at 0'dark:30 and off to explore Bunche Beach in Fort Meyers, then planned on a stop at Ding Darling on Sanibel, and finally Corkscrew Swamp in Immokolee to round off the day.  It was an ambitious plan for sure.  It was also lousy weather.  Cold enough for jackets and really overcast all day with intermittent drizzle/mist.

We timed the trip according to low tide which was at 8 AM.  We started the day at Bunche Beach so that we would end up at Ding Darling when the tide was out.  It turned out to be a smart move.

Bunche Beach (pronounced Bunch but we continued to say Buncheee all day)
The tide was out which exposed alot of the beach.  We saw 2 birders way out in the distance using a spotting scope to view a hundred or so Black Skimmers.  We walked the beach toward them when all of a sudden, all of the Skimmers took off across the bay.  What a bummer.  We looked up and realized why the Skimmers were high-tailing it off the beach.  An immature Bald Eagle was cruising for a quick meal.
The 2 birders with the scope turned out to be Ann and Charles from Babcock-Webb.  What a coincidence.  We got really great looks at Sanderlings - I know, I know, who cares about Sanderlings but they were running across our feet all morning.  We couldn't help but coo over how cute they were.  We also pretty much had a workshop on 4 plovers with up close views of each.  Black-bellied, Semi-palmated (1st photo), Piping (2nd photo), and Wilson's (lifebird for us, 3rd photo) were also running all around us on the beach.

Ding Darling

I had an epiphany about timing this stop at low tide which turned out to be good.  We arrived after low tide and saw more birds than we have seen there in a long time.  Roseate Spoonbills, White Pelicans, all species of Herons and Egrets (including Reddish), sandpipers and gulls were all feeding in the mud flats in large numbers.  Yeah. We also got close up and personal with a Spotted Sandpiper feeding in a ditch.  Here is the best shot that I could get in the poor conditions:

Corkscrew Swamp

We headed to Corkscrew swamp after lunch hoping for Barred Owl, Pileated Woodpeckers and possible Swallow-tailed Kites.  We only got one of those (Pileated) but we were surprised by the number of passerines that we saw up close. We listed 29 species in all.  Unfortunately, the light was soooo bad by then that none of my full frame photos came out.  All blurry.  I could cry.

Here is our list from Corkscrew:

Double-crested Cormorant	Red-bellied Woodpecker	Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Anhinga	Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	Gray Catbird
Little Blue Heron	Downy Woodpecker	Yellow-throated Warbler
Black-crowned Night-Heron	Hairy Woodpecker	Pine Warbler
White Ibis	Pileated Woodpecker	Palm Warbler
Wood Stork	Eastern Phoebe	Black-and-white Warbler
Black Vulture	Great Crested Flycatcher	Common Yellowthroat
Turkey Vulture	White-eyed Vireo	Eastern Towhee
Red-shouldered Hawk	Blue-headed Vireo	Common Grackle
Common Ground-Dove	Carolina Wren

On our way out of Corkscrew, we drove north on a back road only to spot 2 Crested Caracara flying next to us, landing in a Palm tree, then landing in the middle of the road to pick at some dead critter.  Cars were beeping at them to get them off of the road.  Caracara in Florida?  Pretty cool.

Babcock-Webb Management Area

4 of us Bird Nerds took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Florida for the weekend and finally made it to Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area near Punta Gorda.  We drove into the park and followed the sound of gunshots that got louder and louder.  Yikes, maybe we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not at all.  In fact, the WMA has a shooting range for target shooting.  Whew.

The ranger told us to look for trees with white rings.  Those trees are nesting trees for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers which is a species none of us had seen before.  Before we got to that area, we ran into flocks of Yellow-rump and Pine Warblers in the open pine savanna, and gators and lots of Ibis and Herons in the flooded grass area.  We met a couple of advanced birders from Gettysburg who told us about some sparrows and to listen for the Red-cockaded Woodpecker in order to see it.  Their tips helped us see the Red-cockaded Woodpecker but we missed the sparrows. Although it wasn't a very long look at the woodpeckers, we definitely identified them by sound and saw one bird up close and another that flew into pine trees further away.  Enough to "list" it anyway.  Thanks Ann and Charles.

We also had a great look at Brown-headed Nuthatch which was a life bird for Lori and Tara.  I listed it as a life bird on the blog because I have never entered it into eBird before.  Truth is that Connie and I saw these birds in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics while staying at Aunt Cathy's house.

I'll post the Ibis photo tomorrow.  And Kate, I'll fill out the forms next week!  Thanks for the call.

Learn Something New Everyday

That's what I was always told.  Learn something new everyday.  Well we learned something new both Saturday and Sunday this week.

Lesson 1 - You can only see owls at night.  That's what the volunteer at Peace Valley Nature Center told Connie yesterday. We had some extra time after we did our chores and decided to take a quick trip to Lake Galena to see some ducks and gulls.  Upon arrival at the visitor center, I made the mistake of telling Connie that there were restrooms inside.  It's as if those words are somehow an ancient cue buried deep within our DNA that triggers our bladders to suddenly want to explode.  Upon hearing those words, Connie headed toward the visitor center.  I told her to ask the staff if they knew where to find owls since a Long Eared Owl and a Saw-whet Owl were seen last week.  10 minutes later, Connie emerged from the visitor center giggling. 

She asked the woman about owls.  The woman kindly replied that you can only see owls at night but you can see Blue Jays and Cardinals during the day.  Mind you, Connie had a $1000 pair of Leica binoculars around her neck when she asked the question.  She even went so far as to tell the woman that she has seen owls during the day "high up in the tree".  The woman responded by telling Connie that she didn't know any more because she only works at the center during the day.  What a riot.  Needless to say we didn't see any owls.

Lesson 2 - Gulls are tasty.  Not that I have tried it myself but Lori and I saw 2 other creatures chowing down on some tasty gull today at Tullytown.  The real lesson for today is that we found another new place to bird around Tullytown landfill.  We drove up this morning with a map from eBird in hopes of finding some gulls and ducks.  What we found were 3 juvenile Bald Eagles standing out on the ice on Van Sciver Lake eating a gull!  Just like that we were within a football field of 3 huge birds.  A few other guys were already there and very helpful.  One guy even told us to follow him to a few other spots including Pennsbury Manor which was right up the road.  Really nice guy. 

We saw another eagle and a few Red-tailed Hawks, 30 or so American Coots, some Common Mergansers and tons and tons of gulls.  Herring, Ring-billed and Great Black-backed gulls everywhere.  Most of Van Sciver Lake was  mostly frozen but any open water was packed with gulls.  You can see how easy it would be for an Eagle to pick one off and why they hang around in winter. We also saw a Red-tailed Hawk trying to fly with a gull in it's talons.  He tried and tried to get altitude but finally settled in a low bush with it. 

There you go.  2 lessons:  owls can only be seen at night and gulls are tasty.

Exploring Delaware Bayshore

If you read this blog regularly, you know that we go to Cape May and other shore points often.  You may also think that we know all of the good birding spots.  Well, that's not really the case.  Sure, we know about the "Hawk Watch" aka Lighthouse and the "Meadows" aka Nature Conservancy, and Higbee Beach and some others.  But we certainly don't know about all of the hot spots. And we are investigating more each year.  For instance, we made our first trip to Stimpson's Island last year and found our first Marsh Wrens. 

Yesterday, Barbara and I signed up for CMBO's Winter Raptors of the Delaware Bayshore field trip.  About 14 participants and 4-5 trip leaders spent 4 hours touring several birding spots south of Maurice River and north of Goshen.  It was great to go with the group to be introduced to new locations and learn more about raptors that we may find at each site. This is the way that we learned when to visit Belleplain State Forest and where to look for migrating birds in spring a few years ago.  It paid off again by introducing us to several new locations such as: 

• Beaver Swamp WMA - about a stone's throw from the CMBO office and yet we have never been there.  We started here and saw Bald Eagle as our first bird of the day - sitting on the nest, switching with it's mate, sitting together on the same tree so that we could gauge the size difference between male and much larger female. 
• Glade Road - a small pull-off on Glade Road just before the bridge that we would have never thought to stop at. We saw 4 Bald Eagles here. Not close, but we watched as the soared around and "danced".  We also saw a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk.  Karen, the trip leader, did a great job of having everyone see the hawk through the scope and explaining how to tell it was a Rough-legged Hawk by the way it held it's wings in flight and hovered.  Oh, did I mention the Peregrine Falcon?  
• Thompson's Beach - another new location for us.  It has a platform for viewing the marsh as do some of the other sites.  I dragged Barbara to the Wawa for a bathroom break before going to this site so we missed some of the Eagles and other birds that the rest of the group saw.  We did get to see Marsh Wrens.
• East Point Lighthouse - never knew this was here.  This site is right on the bay.  We saw lots of ducks here including Bufflehead (still didn't get a good photo) and Common Goldeneyes.
• Heislerville WMA - has a dirt road around several ponds.  Again, we would never have found this site and even if we did, we wouldn't have driven on the dirt road to get close to the ponds.  

 A map to all of these sites plus the more is available at CMBO website.

A highlight of the trip for me was seeing a Gray Ghost sitting in a field on the way out to Stimpon's Island.  When the other cars in the caravan stopped, we stopped too and were 50 feet away from it.  A Gray Ghost is what they call a male Northern Harrier because he is all gray while the females are brown.  What a beauty!  We saw lots of Harriers on the marshes at each location but only one Gray Ghost . . . ooooh. 

The group dispersed from here but Barbara and I went to Maple Road and Turkey Point on our way home. I never realized that they were 2 separate sites until Chuck, the other trip leader explained it. We also found out that the whole area surrounding Turkey Point is actually a Natural Lands Trust area called "The Glades". It is Natural Lands Trust's largest preserve.  We saw Yellow-rump Warblers and our first ever Seaside Sparrow.

New Address for the BirdNerd Blog

You wouldn't know that I work for a tech company by my low-tech approach to the Phillybirdnerd blog.  But that all changed this morning.  I finally registered www.phillybirdnerd.net domain and pointed it to the blog.  Notice the address bar?  It should say www.phillybirdnerd.net rather than phillybirdnerd.blogspot.net as it did in the past. You can continue to use the old link but using the new link will give me better statistics.

I'm trying to get more readers and more interaction so please pass the word and get people to follow the blog and post comments.  Also, let me know if you have trouble posting comments by emailing me directly at linda@npowerpa.org . 

Now, on to the bird post:  not much happening this weekend except that the Schulkyll River is icing up.  That will be good news this week for ducks at the Boathouses.  Stay tuned.

The Difference Between Florida and Pennsylvania

Note card from my mother - in lovely cursive handwriting:

Linda - well here's our flock - not starlings like up north but they still poop on my neighbors roof!!
Was so glad that you & Di decided to surprise me! Made my holiday. Love Mom & Dave

Here are the accompanying photos that were taken with a point and shoot film camera. I had to scan them and turn them into jpegs for the post.

Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready for My Close-up

Just got back from a week in Florida. After leaving The Villages, I dropped Di at Tampa airport and scooted on down to Punta Gorda to meet up with the rest of the nerds. We took the boat down the Alligator River (it's really called that) into Charlotte Harbor and across to Cayo Costa State Park which is an island just north of Captiva. Lot's of fun and lot's of great birds along the way including Brown Booby and several Common Loons! Boobies! It's always great to see Boobies. . .

We also had Hooded Mergansers on the canal right at the house. I got good photos of this hen while she snoozed on a palm tree log. Poor thing has a droopy wing but she was getting along just fine fishing etc. We spoke to the volunteer at the Peace River Wildlife Rehabilitation Center about it. He said that they wouldn't be able to catch her if she was moving around that well. That's good news. You can see her droopy wing in this photo:


Here are another couple of Hooded Mergansers on the canal:

The variety of birds was low but the birds that we saw were very approachable. Take these birds for instance. Gorgeous! This Snow Egret was only a few feet away looking for a handout:


And this beauty (well, his mother thinks so anyway). A Black Vulture that was released from the rehabilitation center but still hangs around:

This Wood Stork takes the beauty crown though. Don't you agree?


More later.

Old Coots

Now the cat is out of the bag. Di and I surprised our mother by flying down to The Villages (Florida) yesterday. We really surprised them too. We've been to The Villages twice before but never during the winter. It gets crowded. Lots of old people and lots of grand kids.

We got to see some pretty cool birds in our 24 hour stay. Here are some photos of the Sandhill Cranes that make their home at The Villages. These two were unphased by all of the people riding by in golf carts. They strolled right across the golf cart path as if they were alone.

We also found Buffleheads, Ring-neck Ducks, Pie-billed Grebes, several Herons and Egrets, Ibis, Woodstorks, Killdeer, Cormorants, and tons of Coots. Di took a great photo of Palm Warbler that landed several yards away from us while we were trying (unsuccessfully) to take photos of the Bufflehead. Here is it. What a great photo!

I don't know why Bufflehead are so hard to photograph, but I never seem to be able to get a good shot. It must be the iridescent coloring against the bright white of the head. I'll keep trying.

On to Punta Gorda with friends. Hopefully, we'll get some more good birding. Stay tuned. . .

Duck + Hawk + Gull = 3 Lifebirds

Yes, we chased the Ivory Gull that has been reported at BreezeeLee Marina this week. Yes, we saw it! It flew all around the marina, sat on pilings, and generally didn't care about all of the people gawking at it. This is the first Ivory Gull ever reported in New Jersey and has been hanging around all week. The Sibley Field Guide states: "Rare. Found in extreme far north among pack ice; rarely ventures farther south." In fact, they make their living following polar bears around and picking the leftovers of seal meat. The gull is so rare, that famous birders have not seen it even though they travel to the arctic specifically to see it. We saw it. snicker, snicker.

The adults are completely white. The bird in NJ is an immature which has some "smudging" of dark feathers on it's face and some brown/black feather tips on some wing feathers and black tips on the tail. Here is my best photo which shows these markings and the marina. From pack ice to packed boat yard:

The next photo shows 1) the gull backlit by the morning sun and 2) the top of Tara's head just before she was blinded by looking into the sun - with binoculars. "Don't look into the sun, don't look into the sun" I said because I could see her following the gull's flight path directly into the sun. She didn't listen, but she did regain her sight within minutes. snicker, snicker.

The gull was NOT our first life bird of the day however. We noticed some cars and people with scopes pulled over on Ocean Drive on our way to the marina. A nice couple pointed out the Norther Goshawk sitting in the cedars along the marsh and let us look through his scope. Very nice. He also told us that he just left the Ivory Gull, so our nerves were calmed somewhat.

After staying with the Ivory Gull for awhile, we drove down to the concrete ship and the lighthouse to see if anything was up. Only about a hundred Widgeons on the pond, that's what was up. We then headed up the Parkway to get Lori and Tara their Harlequin Duck - which was the whole reason for the trip in the first place. I thought we would have a chance at the Avalon Sea Watch so we went there first. No Harlequins, but we did get Long-tailed Ducks and Common Loon up close and some Common Eiders out by the jetty.

Then, off to Forsythe NWR with our Wawa sandwiches for ducks and geese. Here is a Hooded Merganser photo which I thought would turn out better than this but at least you can see his cool "hood":

After an hour or so at Forsythe, we made a last push for Harlequins and drove farther north on the Parkway to Barnegat Lighthouse. It was now 3:30PM. We left the house at 7:30 AM. We were tired. We were running out of daylight. The wind was howling down the beach. We persevered and walked to the end of the jetty. We got the Harlequins! 1 male and 2 females right next to the jetty. Unfortunately, the light was not good enough for a good photo. Sorry Tara, this is the best one:

We made it back to my house by 7:00 PM. Almost 12 hours. Lori and Tara had more than that because they had another 20 minutes on each end of the day.

Hurricane Ida - Pros and Cons

Hurricane Ida put a big damper on our trip to Florida. Small craft advisories and 45 mile per hour winds kept us off of the boat for days. Upon arrival back in Philly, Ida stalled off of the New Jersey coast for another 4 days. Total Ida days for me, Di and Babs: 7. Seven days of gray skies, off and on rain, and nasty wind. Ida eroded beaches all along the coast and kept us all miserable for a week. That's the con.

Now the pro. Ida's northeast winds pushed 100's of Common Eiders onto the Jersey coast. Over 100 have been reported off of Cape May at St. Mary's by the Sea vacation convent and another 80 have been seen at Barnaget Inlet. Today I took the chance and drove to Barnaget Inlet. The weather was still overcast but no wind. I walked out to the end of the jetty and PAY DIRT! A raft of 100 Common Eiders, plus a few Harlequin Ducks. See below for photos:

Herring Gulls on the beach, Eiders in the surf

Different plumages of Eiders: immature male, female, and 2 males

Herring Gulls, Eider, Harlequin Duck - all in the same frame

Here are some of the other birds seen at the inlet:

Oystercatcher

Herring Gull with a Starfish

Semi-palmated Plover

Grumpy Old Men

I hope you notice the new blog layout and especially the new title bar which includes 2 of my best photos. Burrowing Owl on the left is my latest life bird and baby Laysan Albatross on the right. Oddly enough, both photos were taken in residential areas. Laysan Albatross baby was sitting in the middle of a lawn in Kauai, Hawaii. I rested my camera on the sign stating to stay behind the sign. The Burrowing Owl was sitting on a similar sign in a neighborhood in Punta Gorda Florida.

Two of the birdnerds bought a vacation home in Punta Gorda on a canal with a boat dock but no boat. Another 2 birdnerds have a boat, but no boat dock. See where this is going? That's right, we towed the boat to Punta Gorda so that the girls could use it for the winter. What a trip that was. Of course, we blew a tire on the trailer and had trouble getting the boat started, but it all worked out and we had a blast birding by boat through the canals into Charlotte Harbor. More about that later in the week.

Now, about that owl. Who knew that such cute little owls could cause old men to be so grumpy? Lori read a report on the Internet about Burrowing Owls in Punta Gorda, so we had to track them down. The Internet report was all about the property owner (read grumpy old man here) wanting to collapse the burrows so that the owls would move and stop pooping on his door step. The owls are protected species. Bothering them is strictly prohibited so we figured that they would still be there.

Well, they weren't on the street named in the Internet article. We drove slowly through the neighborhood scouting probable burrowing spots. Scanning each yard carefully. Nothing. No owls. I finally asked an old man riding a bicycle if he knew about the owls. He told us that he was also looking for them and that they are usually on one of the streets in the neighborhood. He peddled one way and we drove the other way. Slowly. We stopped at a vacant lot with a patch of overgrown weeds. We were sure that this would be a good burrow location. Well, we were really sure once we read the sign that stated "Important Bird Site - KEEP OUT". That's a pretty good clue that the owls are around.

Enter the grumpy old man: A car pulled into the driveway on the lot next to the KEEP OUT sign. A man got out and yelled to me "that lot's not for sale" to which I replied "we're looking for owls" to which he replied "they're not there and I don't want people in my backyard" to which I replied "oh, I didn't know this was your yard since it's not mowed". He got back into his car and drove away.

Enter the nice old man on the bike: He rode up to us, chuckled about the grump and proclaimed "I found them, follow me". We proceeded to follow him over to the next block and here is what we saw:
Pretty cool huh? Right next to another grumpy old man's house. He stuck his head out of the door and asked if he could help us when we were sitting in the car outside of his house gawking at the owl. What did he think we were doing? Why else would a car be stopped in front of that sign and that owl? To talk to him? Not bloody likely.

Here is another photo of the owl:

She Took the Book

Funny story. We took Mimi (our old cat) and Roxy (our itchy dog) to the vet last night. Dr. Kirkhoffer (Jane) has been our vet since we moved to Rydal. We used to see her often when Cocoa was alive since she needed a shot every month to control her Addison's disease (the dog, not the vet). You know that you are at the vet too often when you start to know her vacation plans and she knows yours. Jane was very excited to hear about our trip to Costa Rica in 2008 because that is where her daughter planned to do her "semester abroad" - all I got to see was the subway and the local beer joint when I was in college. Anyway, we lent her our Costa Rica field guide last November for her trip.

Last night (one year later), Jane greeted us by saying that she was thinking about us because she just gave the book to another vet at the practice since she was going to see her niece who is in the Peace Corps down there. She hoped we didn’t mind. It's fine with us.

That book is well traveled. . .

Potter County Trip

Here's the update from Potter County: beautiful leaves, not many birds. Connie and I went up to the camp to winterize since none of the men-folk mentioned anything about going up for hunting season this year. It snowed 6 inches last week and we got nervous about the pipes freezing. Luckily, everything was fine.

We saw and heard alot of Ruffed Grouse this weekend. Saturday was the start of small game hunting season so I don't know if that made the Grouse more mobile since there were men with shotguns and dogs in the woods spooking them out. We even saw one crossing the road (insert chicken joke here) near the lake.

Juncos all over the place now. I wonder if they will head down south or stay in Potter County over the winter. I know that we have been seeing them in Philly for the last 2 weeks or so. I expect them at the feeder any day now. Here are some foliage photos from the weekend:

The field in front of Frank, Frank, Frank's cabin

Me, Connie and Roxy at George Stevens Dam (Sinnemahoning State Park)

Royal Court

I didn't realize that a dog like Roxy would be such a princess until this week. We've had 4 days of that Nor'easter which started on Thursday and finally ended Sunday just before the Phillies game (this reference becomes more relevant at the end of the post). Roxy weighs 48 pounds but it was more like a ton of bricks trying to get her out of the house in the rain. She just would NOT go outside. There I was in my rain slicker standing outside while she looked at me from the garage like "I'm not going out there, you fool." Holding her paws up off the wet ground and everything. What a wuss.

We finally went on a real walk on Sunday. It was really cold and still kind of drizzling but I couldn't stand it anymore and dragged the princess out to Lorimer Park. We were greeted by a slew of White-throated Sparrows. They are really the dominant bird now along with the Kinglets. I was amazed by how many little Ruby-crowned Kinglets were in the park. I counted 11 at one time in the trees and could have touched 2 of them. One lone Golden-crowned Kinglet was just outside of the pack. You really get to see the Ruby crowns when they are together since they raise it when another Kinglet comes too close.

Oh, and the Phillies whipped the Dodgers in game 3 of the NCLS. We were at the game courtesy of Lori, sitting in section 106 right next to the first base foul pole. Barbara's finger nail is bent backwards from Shane Victorino's 8th inning homer that came directly to us. AWESOME! We didn't get the ball. It bounced around under the seats and some other guy came up with it.

Those Handsome Birds

I have seen lots of Black -throated Blue Warblers this fall at Lorimer Park. They seem to love the berries on the Tree of Heaven. The Tree of Heaven is considered a junk tree but it has a pretty pink flower in fall and lots of purple berries. The Black-throated Blue Warblers are drawn to the berries. I have see 10+ almost every time that I have been to Lorimer Park where there is a grove of these trees. I finally got some photos the other evening. Here are the only 2 that really turned out.

Handsome male

Eating the berry

Grand Ole Opry

I should definitely go see the Grand Ole Opry this week. All of the signs are pointing toward it. Well, not all signs but enough. Here they are:

1. Kanye West makes headlines all over the world for interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards (which nobody really watches until something like that happens)
2. I was greeted by a Nashville Warbler at Palmyra Cove on Sunday. That little bird landed right in front of me almost eye level and hung around for a few minutes. It has a great white eye ring on it's gray head, and a yellow body.
3. Then I saw not one, not two, not three, but four Tennessee Warblers on the same tree stem. Plus 2 others on the branch next to them. These were the first Tennessee Warblers that I have seen in the U.S. The only others that I have seen were at La Paz Waterfall Gardens in Costa Rica.

Three signs that I should visit the Grand Ole Opry soon. Bounder trip anyone?

Sunday was a really good day at Palmyra Cove. I also saw my first Grasshopper Sparrow, lots of Palm Warblers -Mom, they are coming your way for winter - and tons of Yellow-rumped Warblers. I mean tons. And 3 separate groups of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. I also met many really nice people. One man helped me identify the Grasshopper Sparrow and another group of people helped confirm the Tennessee Warblers. Both of which I spotted alone and would have needed time with the field guide to confirm. Another couple showed me some trails. Really nice.

And Then the Fog Lifted

We started at Higbee beach around 7:30. It was overcast and foggy but good enough visibility for close up birding. Tons of birders were there. We had to park way down the road past the "Morning Flight" platform. We walked through the birders and picked through the trees for a few birds including Baltimore Orioles, 2 (not so) Scarlet Tanagers, and lots of Brown Thrashers.

We stopped by the CMBO store close to the Cape May Lighthouse to buy a new Sibley Guide because mine ended up in Tohicken Creek at Lake Galena and the pages are all stuck together. We couldn't even see Lily Lake or the top of the Lighthouse. A guy there said that it would clear up soon. We'll see.

The parking lot at the Lighthouse was packed. I never saw so many people there. They even had pony rides going on. Pony rides. Nobody at the Hawk Watch platform seemed happy when we passed by. There were alot of people on the platform with there heads hanging down. Not looking up like they wanted to. They should have at least looked at the ponies to kill time. We headed out behind the dunes and into the trails around Cape May State Park (the Lighthouse).

We were stalking some unknown birds sounds (that might have really been frogs because we never saw any birds even though the sounds were coming from right beside the trail) when all of a sudden, the fog lifted and we saw blue sky. And then a Bald Eagle, and a Peregrine Falcon, and a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and another Peregrine, and another Eagle that was flying even lower than the first one, and 2 Ospreys, and then a kettle of Sharpies, and Red-tailed Hawks, and Peregrines, and, and, and. And wow that's what. 2 kettles formed with at least 20 birds each in a matter of 10 minutes. Pretty impressive flight. The best hawk flight? Probably not but it was really great to see all of a sudden. Here is a photo of a Peregrine Falcon from last year:

Then it was off to Biggie's 50th surprise party in Cape May Courthouse for a really great party! Happy Birthday Biggie

Not Without the Hubble

I did alot on Saturday birding-wise. We started at Palmyra Cove which was the subject of the last post. I didn't want to overwhelm you all with the entire day, so here is the afternoon/evening post from Saturday.

After a late breakfast at Nifty Fifty's, we all went our separate ways. Lori had a funeral to attend and I had yard work. At about 1:30, I got a call from Lori with that tone in her voice. "What are doooin'?" with that long doooo that suggests that she regrets saying no to hawk watching at Fort Washington State Park. Needless to say, we met 30 minutes later at the hawk watch platform. This is a picture of what we saw:


Nothing but blue sky. Gorgeous, blue sky. The official hawk counters were calling off hawks with statements like - "Does that dot in the sky have a white head?" and "No, the big dot above the 3 little dots". We failed to bring the Hubble Telescope with us, so we saw nothing. What a bust. We didn't even see anything in the woods on our little walk. One Peregrine Falcon screamed by and 2 resident Red-tailed Hawks soared around for a little bit, but nothing else.

Then my sister wanted to go for a motorcycle ride. Off we went with binoculars under our motorcycle jackets. I decided to go to Lorimer Park rather than Pennypack Trust since we didn't have the dogs along. Lorimer Park does not allow dogs - or so we thought. They recently completed a rails to trails project that we wanted to explore and I noticed a poop bag dispenser on the trail. Hmmm. Then we met a couple walking dogs and asked about it. Yes, dogs are allowed in the park now. Yeah!

Also, we saw great birds along the path. Black-throated blue warblers (2 males/1 female), 2 Chestnut-sided warblers, and a Catbird all chowing down on berries in the Tree of Heaven. What a great photo op. Beautiful blue birds against a pink flower background. No camera :-(