Category Archives: Birds

Birds, Books, Snapshots

Cutwater

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also Scissorbill, Shearwater and previously known along the Virginia coast as Storm Gull.

I’d suggest the addition of Penguin Gull.

; )

Do you see the similarity?

My 1917 edition of the Birds of America is a joy for many reasons, but I particularly enjoy it for the local or historical names; so often these names are much more evocative of a bird’s spirit or some fundamental quality that we associate them with.

Peterson sort of dryly describes their call as *barking* or alternately as “kaup, kaup.” To me it sounds like something between a bark and a quack. Members of a colony at rest on the beach will call anxiously to one another as people approach on foot and it sounds for all the world to me like a childhood game of “Marco Polo.”

Listen for that next time!

Birds, Wanderings

Who’d have guessed it?

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I’d intended to post a “bad bird photo of the week” tonight, but this is not it.

Stop laughing. I can hear you, you know.

; )

I was at Cape May this past weekend and between the swarms of monarchs and tree swallows, which I mean to get to talking about eventually, there was an hour or so spent puzzling over the ducks at Lighthouse Pond in Cape May Point State Park.

I love ducks, but this time of year is awful for trying to identify any of them. There’s juveniles and females and males in eclipse plumage… basically meaning that no duck looks the way we expect them to… there’s hints to their identity, of course, but puzzling one’s way through bill and eye color is time-consuming and generally against the way I like to enjoy birds.

This bird was a puzzle we eventually gave up on… we’d called it a teal for a while… eventually settling on a Cinnamon Teal, even though we *knew* that wasn’t right…

Today there was this from The View at the Cape identifying this duck as a Northern Pintail. We’d never guessed that, I don’t think… some weird Wigeon, maybe, but a Pintail?

Of course it’s obvious to me now that I know what it is…

: )

Birds, PSA, Snapshots, Travels with the flock

Cape May lineup

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Are you in?

So far there’s just Susan, Delia and me.

(pout)

That’s a very small Flock.

BT3 is speaking on Saturday night.

There’s the Hawkwatch and the Seawatch at Avalon.

Heck… there’s Sandy Hook on the way from the airport.

The Fall Weekend at Cape May isn’t anything like the New River Festival or Potholes and Prairies, but this isn’t West Virginia or North Dakota. What NJ might lack in charm or hospitality, it makes up for in birds.

; )

And high prices, I know.

Don’t let the registration fees dissuade you. Come for a day or an afternoon, even.

We’re making it more affordable this year by staying together in some ramshackle hotel and only paying for a day’s worth of programs. We’ll spend the rest of the weekend wandering on our own, making up bird ID’s and laughing together.

Sounds fun, no?

It’s Cape May… THE birding destination. You know it’s on your list for “someday”… why not make it this year?

The Flock would love to have you join us.

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

Nap time

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A special treat of late summer in Cape May is the flock of Black Skimmers and Royal Terns that rest and spend the daylight hours half asleep, crowded beside each other on the beach near the 2nd Ave. jetty.

They present a curious site to beach-goers, I imagine, and always make me chuckle at just how relaxed a posture many take. How often do we get to see birds sleeping, after all?

: )

Birds, In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Some Sandy Hook birds

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I wandered out the fisherman’s trail at Sandy Hook late this afternoon, mainly to see the flock of Black Skimmers that nested there – for the first time in 25 years – but also just to enjoy some time alone. The day was perfect; warm and breezy and the throngs of beach-goers were heading in the opposite direction from me. I had the beach to myself, save for the fishermen and a couple other birders.

A couple Ruddy Turnstones wandered by and had a bath as the tide rose around us. Turnstones seem nearly as tame as the Sanderlings, yet they’re much more gregarious.

Funny that I’m slowly learning the temperaments of shorebirds, even if I can’t identify them most of the time!

The terns here at Sandy Hook seem like they’re mostly done with feeding young, but still are spending a lot of time flying around, calling, with fish in their bills. Maybe parenthood is a hard habit to break. Maybe this fish was a bit too big and it was calling as an invitation to share.

A mystery for another summer, I guess.

The Black Skimmer colony is a joy… a finely choreographed chaos of long-winged birds and enough barking to drown out the sounds of the surf. Just amazing!

I couldn’t get anywhere near as close as to those in yesterday’s post (of the flock at the 2nd Ave. jetty in Cape May) but this is an active colony, with young birds not yet able to fly. By mistake I scared a couple fuzzy chicks out from their hiding spots behind bits of driftwood… that was enough to stop me in my tracks.

This pic is sweet, I think, because it shows the way that improbable bill of theirs lengthens and develops color as they age. The oldest bird, on the far left, was able to fly… the others not. I saw a couple that looked younger than even that one on the far right.

I feel very blessed that we have them breeding so close to home and hope they’ll be back at Sandy Hook next summer…

Always there’s one little Sanderling and I; this one almost too close for my camera.

: )

Here’s hoping your Labor Day was filled with similar pleasures.

Birds, PSA, Wanderings

A Jersey stare down

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: )

The 7th Annual New Jersey Meadowlands Festival of Birding is scheduled for next weekend, September 11 and 12th. An urban oasis, the NJ Meadowlands is made up of more than 8,000 acres of wetland habitat and is home to better than 280 species of birds. A designated Important Bird & Birding Area, much of the prime birding habitat is situated on reclaimed landfill sites.

Richard Crossley, the author of The Shorebird Guide, is giving the keynote.

Maybe I’ll get him to sign my book, finally.

; )

Hope to see you there!