Palmyra Cove Nature Park 9/20--Sora

Sora

I don't know why, but Palmyra seems much farther away than say Brig or Sandy Hook, even though it takes me more or less the same amount of travel time to get to any of them. Assuming I go a Sunday to Palmyra. Maybe it's because birding a dredge spoil site on the Delaware seems more exotic than being on the coast. 

I was up early this morning and left the house in the dark. By the time I reached Palmyra's parking lot, the sun had been up for only a few minutes. Just as I was starting to walk out of the parking lot M pulled up, then K, so I joined them. We walked out to the bridge where we found, as expected Jim & Tom. I hung around while M & K went a-wandering and I joined Jim and Tom in counting the huge Blue Jay migration taking place. Flocks of 30 or 40 birds would pass by every few minutes. My count seems enormous to me but it is a couple of hundred under theirs. Suffice it to say that Blue Jays out numbered all the other species today, including gulls. 

We were hanging around in the cove when Scott turned up and the four of us birded together for a while. Jim and Tom of course, know the park inside and out; Scott and I haven't birded it nearly as much as they and Tom, during the course of the day showed us a lot of the hot spots in this hot spot. I would say that I wish I had a map of the park, but it would be next to useless because a lot of the places Tom took us aren't places on the map--we bushwhacked through some woods, up over a dike and around over to a hidden pond where a Connecticut Warbler had been reported. I can go years without seeing a Connecticut and now, after a minor amount of pishing, I had my 3rd bird in 2 days. 

Before that we had stopped at the Perimeter Pond and looked for a Sora that was supposedly there. We couldn't find it. We met M & K coming back to look for the bird and they told us about the Connecticut report. We set off for the spot and were about halfway there when M called Tom. They had the Sora. Turn around, walk back, and find it about 50 feet away from where we'd been looking. A very cooperative bird, feeding beneath a stalk of bent over reed. Then we headed back to Connecticut territory, though, Jim, who was lugging his scope, peeled off to put it away. It kind of reminded me of days at Prospect Park when rare birds would be reported on a primitive alert system and I would fast walk from pond to trail to lawn in the park 

While there were a lot of warblers, the big push seemed to have been yesterday, as it was on Island Beach. Fall is definitely in the air--I got my first of season Yellow-rumped Warbler today. Tom continued walking us around to great spots where there was always something of interest--an Ovenbird here, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak (county lifer) there, and finally, into "The Pit" which you would never know was once a dredge spoil pit being as flat as the surrounding area, where some sparrows and warblers were flying hither and yon and giving us a hard time until Scott picked out one bird that was puzzling and said it was a Yellow-throated Vireo. Always a good bird, but, apparently at Palmyra, a very good bird. 

It was a great tour of the park, but I had the same feeling I get sometimes when I'm on a trip with Scott out west--I have no idea where I am or how to get back to the car. It is then that I revert to the philosophical adage, "I am here and it's now." 

Looking at my list about 3/4 of the way through the day I was astonished to find I was at over 60 species. I didn't feel like I was birding very hard. It just seem every tree, field, or body of water had something new for the day. I ended up with 68 species. It hasn't been a bad 2 days...at least in terms of birds. 

Canada Goose  46

Wood Duck  18

Mallard  24

Wild Turkey  6

Mourning Dove  1

Chimney Swift  30

Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1

Sora  1    Small striped Rail w yellow beak black patch around eye. 

Killdeer  1

Least Sandpiper  8

Semipalmated Sandpiper  5

Spotted Sandpiper  1

Laughing Gull  100

Herring Gull  5

Great Black-backed Gull  1

Caspian Tern  2

Double-crested Cormorant  71

Great Blue Heron  2

Great Egret  8

Green Heron  3

Turkey Vulture  5

Osprey  1

Northern Harrier  1

Cooper's Hawk  2

Bald Eagle  7

Red-shouldered Hawk  2

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Belted Kingfisher  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  2

Downy Woodpecker  2

Northern Flicker  3

Eastern Wood-Pewee  2

Least Flycatcher  1

Eastern Phoebe  3

Yellow-throated Vireo  1    Yellow throat. Prominent spectacles. White wing bars. In the pit

Red-eyed Vireo  2

Blue Jay  335

American Crow  17

Carolina Chickadee  8

Northern Rough-winged Swallow  5

Tree Swallow  1

Barn Swallow  2

Red-breasted Nuthatch  1

House Wren  1    Heard

Marsh Wren  1    Heard cove

Carolina Wren  2

Gray Catbird  8

American Robin  7

Cedar Waxwing  13

American Goldfinch  5

Chipping Sparrow  5

Song Sparrow  1    Heard

Red-winged Blackbird  10

Common Grackle  150

Ovenbird  1

Northern Waterthrush  2    Heard

Black-and-white Warbler  3

Connecticut Warbler  1    Flea market pond area

Common Yellowthroat  1

American Redstart  4

Cape May Warbler  3

Northern Parula  3

Blackpoll Warbler  1

Black-throated Blue Warbler  1

Yellow-rumped Warbler  1

Scarlet Tanager  3

Rose-breasted Grosbeak  1

Indigo Bunting  4