Avalon Seawatch 10/24--Parasitic Jaeger

Shari & I decided to do a little sea watching today, and the best place for that is down at the Avalon Seawatch in north Cape May County. The seawatch has recently been relocated 2 blocks south onto the beach, with a neat little blind built for the seawatcher to protect him (her) from inclement weather. It also affords a much wider view of the ocean than the old location. The weather was perfect with virtually no wind and bright skies. But, much like hawk watching, sea watching can be very frustrating if you don't do it a lot. We have a little pamphlet called Ducks at a Distance, and I always think of it when I see a long skein of ducks whipping south, and the sea watcher is calling out the different ducks in the flock when I'm only able to identify perhaps half of them. It isn't just my i.d. skills that hamper me; my eyesight isn't as sharp as I'd like it to be and I can't hone my skills for very long because even standing on a beach, looking at the ocean through a scope makes me seasick.

The highlight of the day was seeing--at a distance--two Parasitic Jaegers flying low along the waves. The absolute low light of the day was watching a loon fly by (I was using binoculars) and other than knowing it was a loon, getting absolutely no field marks on it, only to hear the sea watcher call it out as Pacific Loon (a nice rarity for the east coast) after I'd lost it in the sky. So, while I can say I saw a Pacific Loon, I can't, in good conscience, count it because if I was asked to describe the sighting, all I could say was that I knew it was some kind of loon.

After almost 2 hours I was pretty dizzy, so we left for lunch. We'd planned to go the Wetlands Institute a few miles south after eating but I'd heard someone at the sea watch talking about the 48th Street maritime forest, so we detoured there and were very happily surprised to find, after walking a short distance through the forested dunes, a plethora of shorebirds that were impervious to the disruptions of beach strollers. In one enormous flock we had Dunlins, Red Knots, Sanderlings, a few Semipalmated Sandpipers and Black-bellied Plovers and one Ruddy Turnstone, as well as a trio of Royal Terns sitting at the water's edge.

Then we drove to the Wetlands Institute where a large flock of shorebirds was wading in the eastern marsh.  We walked to end of the trail and made the day an official success when I found for Shari a couple of American Oystercatchers pressed up against the reedy shore. The day became a social success when on the way back we ran into Pete Bacinski and Joanne Hall. Of course, Pete picked out some Short-billed Dowitchers that I'd like to think had just flown in but that I probably had just overlooked.

I also, unexpectedly, was able to add to my Wawa collection. Shari found an oddball Wawa in Avalon--I don't know the story behind it, but it looks like the Wawa that time forgot, with a logo that is a complete outlier to any of the other standard logos that Wawa uses. There was a time in my life when I could tell you the name of this typeface, but it didn't take long for me to empty my brain of that sort of thing after I left the printing biz. I was inordinately pleased to stop there and buy a big cup of coffee and put the store on my Wawa life list.


For our meandering day we managed 38 species. Respectable for mid-day birding.

Species               First Sighting

Brant     Avalon Seawatch

American Black Duck     Wetlands Institute

Green-winged Teal     Avalon Seawatch

Surf Scoter     Avalon Seawatch

Black Scoter     Avalon Seawatch

Red-throated Loon     Avalon Seawatch

Double-crested Cormorant     Avalon Seawatch

Great Blue Heron     Wetlands Institute

Great Egret     Wetlands Institute

Snowy Egret     Wetlands Institute

Little Blue Heron     Wetlands Institute

Northern Harrier     Wetlands Institute

Bald Eagle     Wetlands Institute

American Oystercatcher     Wetlands Institute

Black-bellied Plover     Avalon Beach

Greater Yellowlegs     Wetlands Institute

Willet     Wetlands Institute

Lesser Yellowlegs     Wetlands Institute

Ruddy Turnstone     Avalon Beach

Red Knot     Avalon Beach

Sanderling     Avalon Seawatch

Dunlin     Avalon Beach

Semipalmated Sandpiper     Avalon Beach

Short-billed Dowitcher     Wetlands Institute

Parasitic Jaeger     Avalon Seawatch

Laughing Gull     Avalon Seawatch

Ring-billed Gull     Wetlands Institute

Herring Gull     Avalon Seawatch

Great Black-backed Gull     Avalon Seawatch

Forster's Tern     Avalon Seawatch

Royal Tern     Avalon Seawatch

Mourning Dove     Wetlands Institute

Northern Mockingbird     Wetlands Institute

Palm Warbler     Avalon Seawatch

Yellow-rumped Warbler     Avalon Beach

Song Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

Red-winged Blackbird     Avalon Beach

House Finch     Wetlands Institute