Ocean City Welcome Center | Wetlands Institute | Brig 5/2--Semipalmated Plover, White-rumped Sandpiper, Black Skimmer, Green Heron, White Ibis

Green Heron, Wetlands Institute

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron eggs, 
Ocean City Welcome Center

Going to the Ocean City Welcome Center heron rookery is like going to the zoo. There is no birding involved. But Shari & I haven't been to a zoo in years and it is a sight to behold to see 4 or 5 species of herons (including the nesting White Ibises), squabbling, turning over eggs, courting, flying, balancing precariously on branches, all from the walkway while the photographers curse the light or the bird that just moved. I thought we'd spend maybe a half hour there but after a while you get caught up in playing a kind of Where's Waldo with herons, as you keep finding more and more of them tucked away behind limbs or you spend time actually birdwatching  as the Yellow-crowned Night Herons tend to their eggs. They're robin's egg blue by the way. 94 minutes later we left. 

Ocean City isn't that far away from Cape May, but we didn't feel like dealing with the crowds down there on the first really warm day of spring. Instead, we went to one of our favorite spots in Stone Harbor, The Wetlands Institute. I was standing on the porch of the Institute, looking out at the marsh when a women approached me and said, "You look like a serious bird watcher, you wouldn't be interested in seeing a nesting Green Heron would you?" "Indeed, I would," I replied, "I need Green Heron for the year." 

The heron was in a little stand of tree that separate the gravel parking lot from the Institute's lawn. I don't think it was really building a nest there but it was very stolid for a long while as people passed by only to fly away out of the tree with a squawk when I returned with Shari. We added 3 Little Blue Herons to the day list, including a nicely splotched second year bird, and a few shorebirds including de rigeur American Oystercatcher for Shari. 

Black Skimmers, Brig

Then it was up north to do a loop around Brig. I was hoping Shari would get to see the American White Pelican. We were at the Gull Pond where we got a surprise. While Shari was playing with a doggie, I wandered over to the corner where the King Rail has been calling for a month and a half and heard it: Kek kek kek etc.  I quickly got Shari away from her canine pal and brought her over to the reeds. The bird sounds like it's 5 feet away from you, but you cannot see it. 

Our loop was pretty successful, though the wind had picked up so I wasn't enthusiastic about trying to scope large flocks of shorebirds for the oddball. We did find two White-rumped Sandpipers close to the south dike and a nice group of Semipalmated Plovers and halfway to the observation tower our first Black Skimmers of the year. And on the north dike, after missing it at the dogleg, Shari found the pelican. 

62 species on our successful Sunday

Species           First Sighting
Snow Goose  Brig
Brant   Wetlands Institute
Canada Goose  Brig
Mute Swan  Brig
Blue-winged Teal   Wetlands Institute
Northern Shoveler  Brig
Mallard   Ocean City Welcome Center
American Black Duck   Wetlands Institute
King Rail  Brig
Clapper Rail   Ocean City Welcome Center
American Oystercatcher   Wetlands Institute
Black-bellied Plover   Wetlands Institute
Semipalmated Plover  Brig
Whimbrel  Brig
Dunlin   Wetlands Institute
White-rumped Sandpiper  Brig
Semipalmated Sandpiper  Brig
Short-billed Dowitcher  Brig
Greater Yellowlegs   Wetlands Institute
Willet   Ocean City Welcome Center
Laughing Gull   Ocean City Welcome Center
Ring-billed Gull  Brig
Herring Gull   Ocean City Welcome Center
Great Black-backed Gull   Ocean City Welcome Center
Gull-billed Tern  Brig
Caspian Tern  Brig
Forster's Tern   Ocean City Welcome Center
Black Skimmer  Brig
Double-crested Cormorant  Brig
American White Pelican  Brig
Great Blue Heron  Brig
Great Egret   Ocean City Welcome Center
Snowy Egret   Ocean City Welcome Center
Little Blue Heron   Wetlands Institute
Green Heron   Wetlands Institute
Black-crowned Night-Heron   Ocean City Welcome Center
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron   Ocean City Welcome Center
White Ibis   Ocean City Welcome Center
Glossy Ibis   Ocean City Welcome Center
Turkey Vulture  Brig
Osprey   Ocean City Welcome Center
White-eyed Vireo  Brig
Fish Crow   Ocean City Welcome Center
Tufted Titmouse  Brig
Purple Martin   Wetlands Institute
Tree Swallow   Wetlands Institute
Barn Swallow   Wetlands Institute
Carolina Wren  Brig
European Starling   Wetlands Institute
Gray Catbird   Wetlands Institute
Northern Mockingbird   Wetlands Institute
American Robin  Brig
House Finch   Wetlands Institute
Chipping Sparrow  Brig
Song Sparrow   Ocean City Welcome Center
Red-winged Blackbird   Ocean City Welcome Center
Boat-tailed Grackle   Ocean City Welcome Center
Common Yellowthroat  Brig
Yellow Warbler  Brig
Northern Cardinal  Brig

White Ibises, adult & immature, Ocean City Welcome Center

Cape May 7/15--I Came, I Looked, I Failed. Twice

Black Scoter, Cape May

Permit me to grouse (bird pun intended). I went to Cape May, that birding mecca, this morning. A mecca during spring and fall migration. Maybe even in winter. But in summer, it is just a summer resort, its beaches crowded with NJ avoirdupois gleaming with sun block, leaving little room for interesting birds.

But I was in search of a specific species, far from the beach. For at least 2 weeks, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, in numbers ranging from 1 to 14, have been reported on a small, private pond in what I guess is North Cape May. Black-bellied Whistling Ducks are a favorite of mine. Not beauties, like Wood Ducks, but goofy looking birds that amuse upon sight. So, last night, seeing that they were still being reported, I determined to make the 87 mile drive down there.

My hope was that I'd drive up to the pond, see at least one duck, then do some real birding, most likely at the Cape May Meadows and the State Park. Hope is a thing without feathers. I had to detour through the main part of Cape May because Rt 109 was blocked for road work, but my GPS got me there without any problem. I pulled up to the pond and saw lots of ducks and geese, along with Laughing Gulls and some crows. All the ducks were Mallards. I looked at every Mallard, sitting on the edge of the pond or resting beneath a willow tree. No whistling ducks.

They had also been seen at the Cape May Meadows, so that was my next stop. I figured, if nothing, else, I'd find a goodly number of shorebirds, one of which I could use for Bird A Day. There wasn't that much at the meadows, every shorebird there I'd already used, and of course, not a whistling duck to be seen.

The most interesting bird I saw, above, was an an out-of-season Black Scoter, but it doesn't even rate as a rarity as a few of these ducks, like Common Loons, seem to not make the northerly flight each year.

I went over to the State Park. The hawk-watch pond was great if you like Mute Swans--there were around 70 of them and not much else. I don't like Mute Swans. Lighthouse Pond had some Mallards.
The plover ponds were empty except for some geese. Toward the back of the 2nd pond I saw two oystercatchers with a chick. The trails through the woods were closed for construction, not that I felt like walking through them, knowing that they'd likely be unproductive.

After lunch I drove back to Shunpike Road for a 2nd look at the pond, hoping that the ducks would have flown in from wherever they were hiding. They hadn't. It didn't help my spirits that I got a text alert that two were in Salem County.

I gave up, but still needed something for Bird A Day. I gave Shell Bay Avenue a try and found various gulls. I drove to the Wetlands Institute, hoping that the marshes would contain some shorebirds, but again, everything in there I'd already used. The best I could do was a Snowy Egret. I guess I have to use it eventually, but I was hoping for a less common bird to justify all the driving. So unless something unusual flies over the house this afternoon, that's the bird I'm stuck with.

Should you hear a high-pitched whine tonight, that would be me, reading that the whistling ducks have returned to the pond for the evening.

My pathetic day list:

Species                     Location

Canada Goose   Cape May Meadows

Mute Swan   Cape May Meadows

American Black Duck   Cape May Point SP

Mallard   Cape May Meadows

Black Scoter   Cape May Meadows

Great Egret   Cape May Point SP

Snowy Egret   Wetlands Institute

Glossy Ibis   Cape May Meadows

Osprey   Cape May Meadows

Clapper Rail   Wetlands Institute

American Oystercatcher   Cape May Meadows

Killdeer   Cape May Meadows

Spotted Sandpiper   Cape May Meadows

Greater Yellowlegs   Cape May Meadows

Willet   Wetlands Institute

Lesser Yellowlegs   Cape May Meadows

Least Sandpiper   Cape May Meadows

Short-billed Dowitcher   Cape May Meadows

Laughing Gull   Cape May Meadows

Herring Gull   Cape May Meadows

Great Black-backed Gull   Cape May Point SP

Common Tern   Cape May Meadows

Forster's Tern   Cape May Meadows

Mourning Dove   Cape May Meadows

Fish Crow   Wetlands Institute

Purple Martin   Cape May Meadows

Tree Swallow   Cape May Point SP

Barn Swallow   Cape May Meadows

Carolina Chickadee   Cape May Point SP

Carolina Wren   Cape May Meadows

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher   Cape May Point SP

American Robin   Wetlands Institute

Northern Mockingbird   Cape May Meadows

Common Yellowthroat   Cape May Meadows

Song Sparrow   Cape May Meadows

Northern Cardinal   Cape May Point SP

Red-winged Blackbird   Cape May Meadows

Common Grackle   Cape May Point SP

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