Cape May 11/12--Eurasian Wigeon, Pine Siskin

Eurasian Wigeon with its American cousin

At the beginning of the year, there were lots of reports of Eurasian Wigeon around the Shark River that I didn't chase because I didn't feel like standing in the cold looking through distant flocks of ducks for one anomaly. I figured I'd run into one on one of the Monmouth County lakes or even better, closer to home in Ocean County. But I didn't and lately the only reports for this duck have been coming from Cape May (where the bird isn't even listed as "rare"), so this morning, having a bit of the "year bird jone,"  I decided to drive down there to see if I could find it on my own. There were lots of ducks on the Hawkwatch Pond at Cape May Point SP--Gadwalls, Mallards, shovelers, American Wigeons, as well as coots and swans and geese, all swimming randomly or else tipping their butts into the sky as they dabbled, so it was with a sigh that I set up my scope and began to scan.  I kept repeating to myself "red head, gray body, red head, gray body" and soon enough (but not soon enough for someone as impatient as I am) I found the Eurasian Wigeon in among its cousins and the whole day would not turn out to be a monumental waste of time.

Pine Siskin (top) with its cousin goldfinch

Now it was time to walk. I had a couple of other birds on my wish list and got one of them. While walking along the trail that skirts the ponds, a couple of largish flocks of goldfinches were feeding on the seeds of a plant with little white blossoms and with them I spotted a few Pine Siskins. Siskins, like Red-breasted Nuthatches, are an irruptive species, meaning that some years there's lots, others not so much. Usually there are at least a few around, but though everyone else seems to have been seeing them, my searches, since we got back from Australia, haven't turned up any. It is not that unusual for them to come to our thistle feeder, but this season I have seen any...yet. So that was another frustration put somewhat to rest--I still would like siskin for the county and will be assiduously watching our feeders in the weeks ahead.

I was also hoping for Cave Swallow, a lot of which had been recently reported over the Hawkwatch platform, but those birds were nowhere in sight. But, having found two year birds I was simply enjoying the walk through the back part of the park, adding some month birds like Tundra Swan and Chipping Sparrow (a sparrow long gone from these parts) and was about 3/4 of the way around the loop when the whole day went kerflooey.

I checked the latest rare bird sightings and saw that about an hour and a half earlier, at the Cape May Meadows right next to the park, a Le Conte's Sparrow had been seen. That would be a life bird for me. This is one of the reasons Cape May is so great and so frustrating. You never know what rare bird is going to show up; but you never know if you'll find it either. I hurried around to the parking lot, jumped in the car and drove the 5 minutes over to the meadows. I looked for a group of birders, quick-stepped it over to them and then...nothing. No one had seen the bird for a while; off and on for an hour of my life I stared into a little patch of phragmites where the bird had last been seen, as if there was no possibility that it hadn't walked, flown, taken a bus, to a different part of the refuge, no it was surely just sitting in front of us and would pop up any moment. Nothing feels stupider to me than just standing around, watching reeds waving in the wind, waiting for a bird to magically appear. Which, of course, it never did. The skies were getting grayer and so was my mood.

By now it was noon and activity had really died down. I'll never build up a huge day list in Cape May unless I get out of bed at 3 AM my drive down there will coincide with sunrise, so a day that started off with me not knowing in which direction to look was turning into a day where seeing a bird that was not a duck was an event.

Higbee WMA--Magnesite Plant

I ate my lunch at Sunset Beach where at least I could get two species of scoters and found, with the help of my scope, two Ruddy Turnstones on the wreckage of the concrete ship, which each visit seems to diminish more. Then I walked in what is undoubtedly the ugliest part of Cape May below the canal, the old magnesite plant that has been incorporated into Higbee Beach WMA. I don't know if magnesite (a mineral that is used to line furnaces) was mined or refined there, but the broken cement, abandoned water tower, and huge, unidentifiable cast concrete parts do not give off a "birding is fun" vibe. A distant cardinal was a brilliant red dot in all the dullness and a few Northern Flickers flew overhead, but the Turkey Vulture roosting on the crossbeam of the water tower was emblematic. A little further on there is an alley of trees that had some birds bouncing around in it but soon, after crossing a stream that seemed more like a ditch, I came to a section with a handwritten sign that read "Restricted Area" and I turned back. I headed back to the state park so I could could cover the areas I had neglected when I heard about the potential lifer, added a couple of day birds and left. I had exactly 50 species for the day, not a huge number, but fine considering the late start.

Species                First Sighting

Canada Goose   Cape May Point SP

Mute Swan   Cape May Point SP

Tundra Swan   Cape May Point SP

Northern Shoveler   Cape May Point SP

Gadwall   Cape May Point SP

Eurasian Wigeon   Cape May Point SP

American Wigeon   Cape May Point SP

Mallard   Cape May Point SP

American Black Duck   Cape May Point SP

Northern Pintail   Cape May Point SP

Green-winged Teal   Cape May Point SP

Ring-necked Duck   Cape May Point SP

Surf Scoter   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Black Scoter   Cape May Point SP

Bufflehead   Cape May Point SP

Ruddy Duck   Cape May Point SP

Pied-billed Grebe   Cape May Point SP

Mourning Dove   Cape May Point SP

American Coot   Cape May Point SP

Ruddy Turnstone   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Herring Gull   Cape May Point SP

Great Black-backed Gull   Cape May Point SP

Common Loon   Cape May Meadows

Double-crested Cormorant   Sunset Beach

Great Blue Heron   Cape May Point SP

Turkey Vulture   Cape May Point SP

Northern Harrier   Cape May Meadows

Sharp-shinned Hawk   Cape May Point SP

Bald Eagle   Cape May Point SP

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Cape May Point SP

Northern Flicker   Magnesite Plant

Blue Jay   Cape May Point SP

American Crow   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Carolina Chickadee   Cape May Point SP

Tufted Titmouse   Cape May Point SP

Red-breasted Nuthatch   Cape May Point SP

Carolina Wren   Cape May Point SP

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Cape May Point SP

Northern Mockingbird   Cape May Point SP

Pine Siskin   Cape May Point SP

American Goldfinch   Cape May Point SP

Chipping Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

Field Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

White-throated Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

Song Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

Swamp Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

Pine Warbler   Cape May Point SP

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Cape May Point SP

Northern Cardinal   Cape May Point SP

House Sparrow   Cape May Point SP