New Month, 4 FOY

As we did in January, we started our month in Cape May County. But instead of seeing how many species we could rack up, we had a rarity in our sights--a Smith's Longspur has been reported for the last week at Stone Harbor Point (where we ended January 1's trip), only the 3rd time this little bird, which breeds in the Arctic and spends its winters in the Mid-west, has been seen in NJ. It wouldn't have been a life bird for us; we saw one, 7 years ago on a bitterly cold day at Jones Beach in NY, but I felt, because of the adverse viewing conditions in which we saw that bird, that this would have been "practically" a lifer. Shari, disagreed; you've either seen (or heard) a bird or you haven't. Still, it would have been good to find it.  What we found, on this first decent day in about 2 weeks (temperatures in the 40's, a virtual heat wave) was about 100 birders figuratively beating the bushes for this rather nondescript little bird and no one having any luck. We ran into a number of birders we know, so we had plenty of company to commiserate with. On the other hand, we did get a couple of consolation prizes: 3 Lapland Longspurs (related, but not nearly as rare as the Smith's), a bird we have only seen at Jones Beach on 4 occasions) and one of our personal favorites, a small flock of Snow Buntings.

Snow Bunting
Photo: Shari Zirlin

On January 1, the last birds we saw in the gloaming were Snow Buntings, so I was happy to see them in good light, they being such pretty little things. After more than 2 hours of wandering around the beach and dunes, we gave up and decided to go 10 miles south to Cape May. There are always rarities down there to look for. Unfortunately, we didn't find any. A Greater White-fronted Goose was not on Lily Lake, probably because most of the water was frozen (as were Lighthouse Pond and the Hawkwatch Pond), and the resident Eurasian Collared-Doves were not on the wires around Whildin Street. We did, however, at the St. Mary's Dune Crossing, come across 3 American Tree Sparrows, which are relatively scarce, I hear, in Cape May, and on the bay we got terrific looks at two drake White-winged Scoters. At the Whildin dune crossing a Bald Eagle flew right over our heads, coming off the bay and flying inland.

And we even had some luck doing high-speed birding: at mile marker 30 on the way down our FOY Northern Flicker flew across and going home, at MM 11, a Belted Kingfisher surprised us, flashing by our windshield.

For the day we had 39 species--a fairly spare list for Cape May County, but a lot of quality was in the mix.

Species       Location

Brant     Stone Harbor Point

Mute Swan     CMP--Lily Lake

Gadwall     CMP--Lily Lake

American Black Duck     Wetlands Institute

Mallard     Wetlands Institute

Northern Shoveler     CMP--Lily Lake

Ring-necked Duck     CMP--Lily Lake

White-winged Scoter     St. Mary’s dune crossing

Black Scoter     St. Mary’s dune crossing

Long-tailed Duck     Stone Harbor Point

Hooded Merganser     CMP--Lily Lake

Horned Grebe     Stone Harbor Point

Turkey Vulture     CMP--Lily Lake

Northern Harrier     Stone Harbor Point

Bald Eagle     Whilldin Ave. dune crossing

American Coot     CMP--Lily Lake

Herring Gull     Stone Harbor Point

Mourning Dove     Whilldin Ave. dune crossing Northern Flicker    GSP MM 30

Belted Kingfisher     GSP MM 11

Blue Jay     CMP--Lily Lake

American Crow     St. Mary’s dune crossing

Carolina Chickadee     St. Mary’s dune crossing

American Robin     Stone Harbor Point

Northern Mockingbird     St. Mary’s dune crossing

European Starling     Stone Harbor Median

Lapland Longspur     Stone Harbor Point

Snow Bunting     Stone Harbor Point

Yellow-rumped Warbler     Stone Harbor Median

American Tree Sparrow     St. Mary’s dune crossing

Savannah Sparrow     Stone Harbor Point

Fox Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

Song Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

White-throated Sparrow     CMP--Lily Lake

Dark-eyed Junco     St. Mary’s dune crossing

Northern Cardinal     Cape May SP--entrance

Red-winged Blackbird     Stone Harbor Median

Brown-headed Cowbird     Stone Harbor Median

House Sparrow     Wetlands Institute