Yes indeed, the odd Red/Silver Maples have begun to bloom, as well as a few Sweet Gums here and there, here on southernmost tip of NJ.

I guess they have been fooled by the last ten days of above normal temps, but mid February is early even here, and we shall see if this early flower doesn’t get thwarted. What is very interesting is that the pattern of which trees have already popped seems rather random-Off the top of my head, I’d bet 5% or fewer of the Maples are in full flower. Very cool to see individual variation at work- Ahhh, the oil which propels natural and sexual selection. Excellent.

(Willows are also getting tawny, the way they will before they turn yellow and bud-out, however, they are not nearly in full flower.)

A quick trip to Hereford Inlet before the rain revealed nice numbers of Dunlin, a few Oystercatchers, no fewer than four Western Sandpipers, a Semipalmated Plover, and soem very sharp Great Cormorants on the Channel markers. Drake Red-breasted Mergansers were doing their best deep bows as they asked the hens to dance for the season, too.

As of today, the Federal Government owns 70% of all U.S. mortgages. It also owns the largest insurance firm. There are only two independent bank/investment firms left on Wall Street. Laissez-what exactly?

And with our economy nearly completely rendered de-facto socialist by the Bush administration, we still feel universal healthcare would be an infringement of our capitalist heritage, apparently…

ya gotta love the irony.

While I do not subscribe to the idea of being “spoken to”, or attach any sort or “intelligent design” to the finding of inanimate objects or occurence of random events, I do believe that one may personally find meaning in the finding of a random thing. Or rather that the finding of a random thing may occaisionally resonate with the finder, or give one pause for a bit of personal reflection.

This evening, while wandering around the wasteland of the magnesite plant, I happend upon such a thing.

For a couple of years, as a type-a student, I was immersed in my thesis, and thought of very little else other than the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a fascinating and revolutionary movement in Realism, and Nineteenth Century English painting and poetry. Some of the larger names being William Holman Hunt, Sir John Everett Millais (my personal favorite, and the subject of my thesis) and probably the best known, “Dante” Gabriel Rossetti, and his poet sister Christina.

Christina wrote one of my all-time favorite poems, “Goblin Market”. How could anyone fail to love a poem which conjures up images of “Ratel-faced” Goblins?!? (A Ratel is an african mustelid also known as a Honey-badger- the animal having a symbiotic relationship with Honey-guides, and a creature next to never mentioned in Romantic, or any other type of literature, for that matter. As an aside, Christina was an animal nut, a fascination which was undeterrred, and perhaps encouraged, by getting herself bitten by “a savage Peccary” at the London Zoo in her youth.)

Now, while looking around the barren ground for a Lark Sparrow today, I stumbled upon one of those official, metal WMA/ Fish and wildlife type of refuge signs. The kind thst usually has a stylized goose and says something like “Wildlife Drive” or “Feeding of Wildlife and Pets Prohibited”.

This one said something very different. The text read:

Hurt no living thing:
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap.
Nor dancing gnat, or beetle flat,
Nor harmless worms that creep
Christina Rossetti

Arlington County Parks & Natural Resources division.
703-###-####

I very nearly could not believe the text, or just how random it was that I, well versed in Pre-raphaelitism as I am, had found it, and judging from the text,and phonenumber am down right bewildered and just a little freaked out by why the hell it would be near the Water Tower, laying on the gravel at the Magnesite Plant in Cape May NJ for me to find.

The Poem comes from a nursery rhyme book entitled “Sing Song” penned by the poetess in 1893.

While I do not “believe” in omens, or pre-determination, and can in no way countenace the idea that I was “meant” to find this random object, I am very glad I did, and wonder what other wandering soul at the Magnesite plant in Cape May may’ve appreciated it more. It is a place not frequented by many at all, let alone those who would carry 18x 14 inch metal signs bearing Pre-raphaelite texts all the way from Virgina, only to drop them on the grey crunchy gravel just near Sunset Beach.

I am rather taken with the improbability of the entire episode.

I also really dig the poem’s sentiment.

The continuing southerly/easterly breeze continued to do its trick, and migrant landbirds were again nothing to write home about from Cape May, today.

However, Solitary and Pectoral Sandpipers were around the ponds at the Point in decent numbers, and Black Terns were very easy to see on the Bunker Pond.

Blue-winged Teal were a bit harder to come by, and I was able to only find about half of the fifty or so which were around at the end of last week.

Martins have largely gotten outta here, and Eastern Kingbirds and Ruby-throated Hummers seem to be going regardless of a good tail-wind or not.

And as an aside- I think Obama would’ve done better with Caroline Kennedy! I can see why Biden might be help in the electoral math, sort of….But isn’t the strategic idea of VP just to do no harm in the campaigning?

I can’t wait to see what gaffe of “forthright”-spoken Joe’s gives the other team the chance to shred the Obama campaign. Cause the next two months or so is an awfully long time for Biden to go without a good foot-to-mouth insertion.

If he can get them there,though he has my blessing, and all its worth. Seems like a decent enough person.

“Many who live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?”

J.R.R. Tolkien

One of the few truly kind people I’ve known (wicked little geminii sense of humor notwithstanding), who went by the name of George Myers, is no longer here. A dear friend, and the last good thing CMBO had going for it, he will be missed. We worked together for some time in a completely non-bird capacity, at the same teeny little cafe in Cape May, and he was universally loved by all who knew him. (And those lucky strangers whose sandwiches he made.) The hawkwatch is already barren without him. The ultra-competitive, (some may say pathologically so) rather heartless, and corporate-speaking new-guard at CMBO could do with a lot more of what George brought to the place: Generosity, levity, genuineness, humility, and the inherent modesty of good plain knowledge.

As someone very wise, who knew him very well, observed: “No matter where he was, wherever he went, people just liked George- cause he was always just George. He could fit in with anyone, anywhere, cause he didn’t have anything to prove, he was always George-and they would like that.”

The birding was very good today- George would’ve like that.

Butterflies didn’t suck either. He would’ve like that about as much.

The same Mourning Warbler as the last few days, the first juvenile Semi-sands and Short-billed Dow I’ve seen (magnificent animal the latter), the same gammy-legged Western Sandpiper as well as the very same pretty darned good-looking Baird’s Sandpiper, juv. and moulting adult Black Terns plucking from the surface like long-winged grace herself, a brace of young Blue Grosbeaks, and a Cliff Swallow all stood out; among others, as being noteworthy.

Yesterday I managed my first Shoveler of the fall, it and one of the best looking birds there is-a fresh juv. Tricolored Heron were in the Bunker Pond. The proportions, married to the bands of wierd teal and richest chestnut, coupled with the bright cadmium bill and the claret eye, heigthened by snowy accents here and there make this bird hands down seven courses of sin for the eye.

(Oh, and by the way, only George would’ve gotten the title on sight, and probably only he and I would automatically laugh at that as well as my imitation of the Great Gilderschneeze, or the diminutive wielder of the p-38iridium space-modulator. If you’re not that well-versed in the genius that is old bugs-bunny, then there may in fact be, absolutely no hope for you…)

I just heard that Anne Milgram, the NJ Attorney General, got a speeding ticket for going 69 in a 50 zone.

The fact that she was driving a 1994 Honda is the cool part:

A fourteen-year old car humming along at that speed is only great news for the known reliability of the make.

and then there’s:

The State’s top Lawyer drives a 14 year old Honda?

Either our attorney general greatly values frugality, modesty, and is possessed of great car-which are all admirable traits, and gives me a sense that she has a very good head on her shoulders, or we gotta start paying our public servants better!

One of the more commonly asked questions I receive on “bird” walks regards the identification of the really big “Pond Turtle” which can often be seen basking with more familiar chums on freshwater, or even brackish ponds around Cape May.

These impressive Emydids (the family of “pond turtles”) are Red-bellied Turtles (Psuedemys rubriventris), and are indeed huge, and something kind of special.

Reliably reaching carapace lengths of over 15 inches, with “uncorroborated reports of specimens as much as 18 inches” the Redbelly is the largest American emydid (Carr, A., 1952, p. 268, Handbook of Turtles, the Turtles of the United States, Canada, and Baja California, Cornell University Press.). The females, as in most “pond turtles”, are larger than the males, and in the Red-belly this dimorphism is particularly pronounced. The females are massive animals, the only turtles one encounters in NJ which are larger would be the Snapper, a very different sort of animal of an entirely different family.

The Red-bellied Turtle has an unusual range, and is basically found along the coastal plain of the Mid-atlantic, basically encompassing the Delaware and Potomac drainages from South Jersey to north-eastern North Carolina. It was, before being extirpated by man also abundant in coastal New York (ibid., p. 267), and a disjunct population is found in Plymouth County Massachusetts. Though it probably wasn’t quite so disjunct before the species was over-hunted for the market.

Once the Diamond-backed Terrapin market went south, so to speak, toward the end of the nineteenth century, Red-bellies, by virtue of their size and tastiness, were the next turtle species to suffer at the hand of the market (ibid. p 272), and their range, which coincidentally is in proximity to most of the urban centers in the Megalopolis (ie it includes basically Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, Richmond, etc.) was no help in the species’ decline.

They are usually the first turtle to drop off the log, and are far warier than Painters, the intrduced Red-eared Sliders, or even the willow-clinging Stinkpots. This wariness is apparently a trait which was selected for by the pressure the animals recieved once upon a time, and is also a useful trait in helping to identify the animals, in addition to their coastal-plain habitat, and unusual bulk. Sometimes you can even see the red belly, and the dark, sometimes reddish spangled or lined carapace is often a help too. But chances are, if a really big turtle drops off a log immediately after one arrives near a pond in Cape May (or Brigantine, or elswhere in a coastal pond in South Jersey) you can safely call it a Red-belly.

CJV

While I really didn’t have much time to go birding today between life, job, and free-lance work, I did manage to squeeze in a bit of time in fresh-air today, and saw a bird or two in the bargain.

No fewer than 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls were at South Cape May. 1 Adult, and three first-summers. One of the first-summers appears to be the bird possessed of a pale based bill which has been hanging around since at least the seventh of May. His mantle is likewise kind of distinctive, and more to the point he looks just like the bird in the photos taken earlier in the month.

Shorebirds seem to have thinned out, Spotted Sands and Solitaries in particular. However, between Pond Creek Marsh and The Meadows, a few Leasts, greater numbers of Short-billed Dowitchers, Dunlin, Semi-sands (there were 90 Semi-sands at the West Cape May impoundments, and little else) Semi-plovers, a few Black-bellies, and Turnstones were easy enough to see.

Two Parasitic Jaegers, both apparently first-summer types were off the point, as was a Black Tern, but really surprising were a pair of Gadwall sitting in the mouth of the bay, a good third of a mile out to sea.

One of the nesting Cooper’s Hawks was low and getting mobbed as it crossed Lighthouse Ave, heading towards the presumed nest site.

Willets are indeed breeding at Pond Creek, though the Meadows is, unsurprisingly, devoid of a breeding pair this year. Belted Kingfishers continue to hunt around Davy’s Lake, though I do not know just where they are nesting.

The birds of the day, however, were the 75 Snowy and ten Great Egrets concentrated along one bit of Pond Creek. Several of the Snowies had blood red-lores and feet, a rare fair feature, and a trait which will quickly dissipate. High breeding flush notwithstanding, 25 Snowies roosting in a bare tree, and a steady stream of them pouring over the marsh to gather in a particular mumichog-rich spot was quite a sight-especialy considering that a scant 100 years ago, they were hanging by their golden toes on the edge of the abyss, staring into the eternity of extinction. Seeing the descendants of the survivors of the millnery trade’s holocaust happily going about their business in good numbers under a gorgeous May sunset, innocently unaware of the trials of their ancestors, does indeed do the heart good.

And while the season for blooming Beach Plums at Higbee’s has come and gone, there are impressive stands of Yellow Irises in the Meadows, which alone are worth a turn around the place. An introduced species, but nonetheless striking for the fact, and not nearly as nasty as Purple Loosestrife, or Mute Swans, I suppose.

CJV

Anyone who knows me, knows that probably my all-time favorite film is the 1969 masterpiece starring Peter O’Toole, Katherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins & Timothy Dalton titled the Lion in Winter. A film version of one of the most masterfully and artfully written plays yet conceived by the hand of man.

Seeing the live 1999 revival of the play, put on by Circle in the Square, starring Stockard Channing in a brilliant reprise of the Hepburn role, and Lawrence Fishburne in a hoplessley miscast reprise of the O’toole part (Great action and serious guy, loved him in “The Matrix”, poor sod has no sense of the comic timing or charm necessary to pull off the Henry II portrayed in “The Lion in Winter” though.) was one of best nights of theatre, for a variety of reasons, that I have had the good fortune of witnessing.

The other thing to know is that I am a huge fan of the 12th Century Renaissance, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the crisis of state in England and France caused by the political genius that was the real Henry II.

Anyway, at one point in this brilliant 1969 film, the character of Henry, as portrayed by O’toole has the line:

“I know I’m winning, and I know I’ll win. But as for the next move…well…”

I just love that line.

CJV

I started the day with a wander around a spot which I neglect most days, the fields around the Nature Conservancy’s Cape Island Creek Preserve. This spot is directly across the creek from my apartment, and yet for some reason I go there less than I should.

The birding was great, though I found no rarities or any serious migratory movements. Most was in the breeding bird category. Although, I have there, and yesterday seen the first female and young male Black & White’s. There were also several Northern Parulas and a Black-throated Blue or two.

Icterids of five species (Red-wing, Brown-headed Cowbird, “Purple” Common Grackle, Boat-tailed Grackle and Orchard Oriole), were territorial or courting and conspicuous. One nearly completely breeding plumaged and seriously territorial male Orchard Oriole was possessed of a small, young-male coloured “supercilliary”- but only on the right side of his face! Whether this was a “scar” or evidence of age was underterminable by me. It should be noted that no hen birds were in the territory he was claiming.

Field Sparrows are feeding young, and female Yellow Warblers were carrying nest matierial. Male Yellow Warblers only arrived on Cape Island what seems like a couple of days ago. Little blighters waste no time do they? Yellowthroats are back and territorial everywhere they should be, which is a very fine thing. Common Yellowthroats have their own distinct personality among parulid-dom (as do most) and are strikingly handsome birds. Females have likewise and finally become more in evidence.

A sub-adult Great Blue was also a “good” May bird, as was an adult later at Pond Creek. Great Blues do not breed in Cape May or Cumberland Counties, despite the perfectly good habitat for them to do so around here. I don’t know why this is, nor does anyone as far as I can tell-there’s a mystery in it, to be sure.

The two best parts of Cape Island Island Creek preserve were substantive and asthetic respectively.

First, the substance:
There is indeed a nesting pair of American Kestrels on the Island this year. Which is a rare fair feature to be able to claim in New Jersey these days, and I am absolutely thrilled to have them as breeders in “the patch”. Among a group of outstandingly sharp looking birds, the A.K. stands out as gem. As an old Chinese proverb says of a beautiful maid in the village-”she is a crane among chickens”. When Peregrines, Aplomados, Hobbies and Caracaras are your chickens, this is high praise indeed. American Kestrels are outstandingly beautiful birds. Not long ago, they used to be dirt common, too…

The other, and aesthetic highlight of Cape Island Creek was a pair of Eastern Willets sitting among the stubs of a still-living Choke Cherry, which was festooned with the new growth of Virginia Creeper & Poison Ivy. Shorebirds sitting in a Cherry Tree, surrounded by shiny green new leaves, is far from a usual sight for most folks in the Mid-Atlantic.

Back to speaking of Hawks, however, an hour spent with a couple of folks who were dilligently pre-occupied with bull-shitting and spring Hawkwatching at the Beanery, while I was admittedly more pre-occupied with dilligently bull-shitting than hawkwatching (and making bad calls as a result!) revealed a rather impressive hawk flight today, here in the over-promoted, and neglectfully under-studied “Raptor-capital of North America”. Merlins and Harriers seemed to be having a really good push, and two adult Pergrines and a couple of Broadwings were in the mix. A Bald Eagle, the odd Sharpie or Coop also livened up the mix. I was rather surprised to find that well over a dozen Harriers were going while we were watching and talking, but like adult peregrines, I guess if you are tundra-bound, like many Harriers are, now is the time to be doing it, just like the Shorebirds.

Despite the best of efforts, and the heaviest of hitters, no Kites of any sort were seen. The lingering Snow Goose continues to linger at the Beanery, however.

(I neglected to mention that yesterday, there were four Red Knot at Heislerville among the other russet or rufous breeding plumaged Shore-birds by the way.)

I found two young male Common Eider at Higbees Beach, just near the old tresstle this afternoon. They were “called in” by an independent finder just a bit later I hear. The hen Common Eider is likewise still poking around the point jetties too, incidentally.

A third-year and probably the same Lesser Black-backed Gull continues on the little “tern island” on the east side of the Meadows, as was a first winter Bonaparte’s Gull.

The best part of Higbee’s and Cape Island Creek today were non-birds though. I saw my firs Monarch, and Tiger Swallow-tails last Friday, but have neglected to mention them. They were both to be found inthese spots today too. Today Common Sulphurs and Pearl Crescents were courting and mating. Henry’s Elfins were still on the paths at Higbee’s, and a gorgeous little male Falcate Orangetip was in the Garlic Mustard between the first and second fields at Higbee’s. My first Black Swallowtail of the year was at Cape Island Creek today. A gorgeous butterfly, and one that is far more common here on the Coastal Plain than in the Appalachian ridges where I grew up.

Blister Beetles are climbing up into the budding heads of Sorrel now, and seem less interested in courtship than they were a week or two ago. Beach Tiger Beetles, which began appearing about a week ago are now in full effect around the Meadows too.

A huge (for a Fence Lizard) and fine male specimen of an Eastern Spiny Lizard was on the path which led to the Eider today. He was golden and completely unmarked on the dorsum, as an old male should be. The blue-black of his gorget extended up and over his arms, and the bright blue of the central true “gorget” was an intense and nearly flourescent indigo hue. While South Jersey is not at all the salamader haven of North Jersey’s Ridges and Valleys, it makes up for it in having Lizards in abundance.

The best part of the day came at sunset though, and was observed from my favorite little hillock overlooking Pond Creek Marsh behind the magnesite plant and Sunset Beach.

Two Coyotes swam across the marsh, hauled out, shook off like the dogs they are, and trotted off towards Sunset Boulevarde and the Meadows/ State Park. I had to do a double take, cause it looked like two dogs swimming across the creek, and I tried to convince myself they were just white-tails. (Deer, like elephants, are one of the few large mammals which frequently colonize islands-Deer are excellent swimmers, and don’t mind extended crossings, really.) But no, a better look revealed they really were the exact canids I thought them to be in the first place.

It was recently pointed out that resident Coyote pack in the neighborhood has not been nearly so vocal as in the past, and has perhaps decreased in number. I hadn’t realised it, bu the fact is true. I was very pleased to see that these two “Prairie Wolves” had made it through the sport-hunting pressure of the winter and were themselves still hunting the area. Something about having a large predator in the area makes it seem a lot less suburban and New Jersey-esque.

Coyotes at Sunset were the perfect ending to a fine day of birds, critters, and stimulating chit-chat. I must say, having no corporate pressure to find birds for money makes April and May, in some way very much more enjoyable than when competitively “scouting” among, as Nietzsche would’ve called them, “the lowing herds”.

CJV

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Recently Written

• Excellent Bayshore Birding: Lots of Shorebirds, Gulls, Silly numbers of Turkeys, and a Vesper Sparrow
• Dolphins, a Brown Pelican, A Cape Island Yellow-throated Warbler and a nice little “fall” around the point in the mist
• Some Eagle notes, etc.
• LAGU in Cape May, and a few other early spring notes
• After the snow in Cape May
• Lots and lots of ducks around Cape May
• Flowering Maples
• News and Notes from Cape May; Black-headed Gull, White-winged Crossbills, continuing Eurasian Wigeon, etc.
• Some nice looks at Short-eared Owls, etc.
• A seal, a balmy day, and the colour of a randy Mallards feet

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• ABA “Peeps” - excellent birding updates from the American Birding Association
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• Bent’s Life Histories-familiar birds - an edited and synoptic version of Bent’s volumes, an invaluable resource nevertheless
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• ebird
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• Punkbirder-the unsound approach - We need a lot more “punk-birding” here in the States
• Save the Albatross - if 100,000 people were slaughtered per year, we’d call it genocide…
• Shorebirder - nice blog from CT
• Sibley Guides Notebook - better than the artwork even
• Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center - Dedicated to research for migratory birds
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