The Beanery 11/21--LeCONTE'S SPARROW

LeCONTE'S SPARROW
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

Cape May has been the place to be the last week or so, particularly the Beanery (or the field across the road from it) which has hosted a couple of very rare sparrows, a "western" flycatcher, and a Wood Stork, along with less rare rarities like Dickcissel and Clay-colored Sparrow. Some birders jump in their car the moment they see the alert for a rarity and they have a better than even chance of finding the bird. Others, less motivated, like me, think, that's a long ride for a bird I might not see and hesitate and the longer you hesitate, the less chance you have of seeing the bird and the less chance you have of seeing the bird the more you hesitate until Mike says let's go to Cape May and I say "what the hey" and Shari isn't working today so she comes too and we three end up in a field shoulder high with vegetation, looking for birds I don't expect to find.

Golden Eagle

After spending about an hour in the field and hearing someone call out one of the rare sparrows which we missed because it flew deep into the undergrowth, I said let's go across the road and at least get the Wood Stork, figuring it's big and we can't miss that. That's when another birder told us it was dead. Gone is one thing; it might come back. Dead really puts a damper on the day. So we continued to circle the field and while we found just about every kind of sparrow you could expect, still we didn't have any luck with the rarities or even the semi-rarities. The best birds, I thought, were the Eastern Meadowlarks that flew above us and landed in a tree.  Or maybe the Golden Eagle we all saw flying over the field which gave us the diagnostic field marks and wasn't just the shape of a hawk flying in the distance, an "if you say so" bird.

But after a walk over in the Beanery proper, we returned to the field for one more circuit, hoping to find a lifer. We spread out, which is never a good idea because if one person spots the bird, it is almost a certainty someone is going to miss it. Almost. Mike was midway in the field, I was a the far end, and Shari a little farther behind me, when another birder called out that she had the bird. We all converged on her spot, pushing away the brush, stumbling on reeds and weeds and of course the bird, which was conveniently perched up for her, had dived down. Mike got a picture (above) and I saw movement and Shari, last to the scene, saw zilch. I wasn't about to count the zipping shape I saw. We continued to looked, hoping the bird would flush. It did, then dove down into what might be called a bush but was really just a collection of sticks. It move a tad to the left, stood on the ground, and I could see it well enough, and long enough, to describe some field marks. Happily, Shari was looking at the same bird and happily, it was a lifer for the three of us, a LeCONTE'S SPARROW, but unhappily, we didn't see it well enough to get the "field guide" looks we always desire. Still, a lifer is a lifer and I don't get that many in NJ. Considering how I was feeling when I was not seeing the bird (ranging from quitting birding for good to suicidal), it turned out to be a good day, especially when you throw in the Barred Owl we heard calling as 10:30 in the morning.

But I can never shake the sense that I'm fighting with Cape May, that it doesn't give up its birds willingly, only grudgingly, and that, all in all, I'd rather be in Ocean County, where the birds really count.

List for The Beanery, including the field across the road:

41 species

Canada Goose  2    Heard

Mute Swan  2

Mourning Dove  5

Killdeer  1    Heard

Great Blue Heron  1

Black Vulture  10

Turkey Vulture  15

Golden Eagle  1

Bald Eagle  3

Red-shouldered Hawk  2

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Barred Owl  1    Heard

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1    Heard

Northern Flicker  1    Heard

Eastern Phoebe  2

Blue Jay  1

American Crow  1    Heard

Fish Crow  1    Heard

Carolina Chickadee  1    Heard

House Wren  2    Exact count

Carolina Wren  2

Gray Catbird  1    Heard

Eastern Bluebird  1    Heard

American Robin  30

House Sparrow  1

House Finch  1

American Goldfinch  1    Heard

Chipping Sparrow  1

Field Sparrow  1

Fox Sparrow  1

Dark-eyed Junco  1

White-throated Sparrow  50

LeCONTE'S SPARROW  1   

Savannah Sparrow  10

Song Sparrow  50

Swamp Sparrow  15

Eastern Towhee  1    Heard

Eastern Meadowlark  6    Flyovers landed in tree very yellow breasts

Red-winged Blackbird  10

Yellow-rumped Warbler  3

Northern Cardinal  1