Dec
29
Winter notes from Cape Island
Filed Under Fish Crows, Rusty Blackbirds, Winter Birds, raptors | Leave a Comment
Just a couple of quick notes from a few stops and some favoured points around the Island:
Firstly, since lots of peope are off this week and this includes lots of gun-wielding City-slickers, birding at Higbee’s Beach is a first class pain in the ass, cause the place is just plain not big enough for the number of yahoos with guns running around it. One or two would be fine, but face it, you can’t swing binoculars most of the time in October without seeing someone you’d rather not, so now imagine that intesified with 20 guage firepower, and that is what one gets in December. The point becomes self-evident-wear as much safety orange as you like, the place is just too small for the number of people with guns.
Otherwise…
With the nice sharp shift to Northwesterlies, there was a decent little hawk flight up and over Cape May, including half a dizen or so Red-shoulders, about as many Harriers, and a Goshawk near Pond Creek. A single adult Bald Eagle and the bunches of Black and Turkey Vultures seem to be the local birds though.
Fifteen or sixteen Greater Yellowlegs were likewise at Pond Creek, which seems to be the number there usually are there, judging from years past.
A half a dozen or so Rusty Blackbirds at Hidden Valley, and a roughly equal number of Tree Swallows here and there were fine additions to the day’s list, and also perfectly seasonal.
And finally, a surprising number of Fish Crows were in one rangy flock which was zig-zagging over these six square miles for a bit today.
Dec
18
Fine early winter birding around Cape May plus some fab views of Otters
Filed Under Mammals, Waterfowl, Winter Birds, raptors | 2 Comments
A few highlights from the better part of the day out and about birding on this little island were:
A surprisingly good seabird flight including flocks and flocks of Red-throated Loons, and far more than expected numbers of Scoter in addition to the apparently growing raft in the rips.
3 Forster’s Terns were not entirely unexpected given the calm and mild conditions.
3 Pied-billed Grebes were scattered here and there.
Duckwise, there were excellent numbers & diversity around, including: 1 Common Eider at Poverty Beach, the most Red-breasted Mergs, Bufflehead, Ruddy Ducks, Hooded Mergs and Black Ducks I’ve yet seen this year, plus very good numbers of Gadwall, and more Shoveler than there have been. Interestingly Teal seem to have rather thinned out though. Most surprising, though, was a hen Oldsquaw in the shallow marshy pan of Pond Creek Marsh at high tide. I suppose it really is within spitting distance of the sea, but still….
An adult Bald Eagle who made his presence known about 4 minutes before being visible by flushing each and every last gull (and a sufficiently panicked Horned Lark) off the beach-front as it flew in off the water just near second Avenue. It the proceeded to flush each and every last duck off the Meadows as it kettled with a good flock of Vultures for a while.
One adult and one imm Red-shoulder were fine additions, and both were up and kettling.
On the subject of Raptors: While walking back through the Magnesite Plant, all of a sudden a large gull began to cry most piteously. It just wouldn’t give up and was making the most awful sounds, but curiously I couldn’t seem to find it-the sounds were first from one spot and then the other, apparently high overhead. Then I found it, or them rather. An adult Peregrine had singled-out the younger of pair of Herring Gulls to make it a plaything for itself. It was spectacular to watch, the falcon doing flips, and rolls, and extending its talon, tauntingly close to the gulls face. The Gull not so “favoured” by the Peregrine’s attentions promptly high tailed it, as his desperate companion tried to keep up with a Peregrine dooing loopty-loops arpound it-nice friend! The dubiously lucky one did its best to avoid the Falcon’s jibes, but was clearly distressed, as its disturbing sounds revealed. Eventually the fickle, sickle-winged tormentor got bored, and went its way. The Gull eventually caught up with his not-so-stalwart companion.
Otherwise an Orange-crown and a Palm Warbler were nice additions, and the Sedge Wren at Higbee’s again was quite visible-today in a mown patch just near yellow pipes where a month ago (ie befere it got mown!) it had been rather difficult to actually see. He even flew across a wide opening, for about 4 meters, giving a great view of the black and white striped back, and the rather long-tailed jizz.
The biggest thrill of the day came just before sunset though, and was given by two River Otters actively hunting around the east pool of the Meadows.
I just stood stock-still, and they fearlessly came towards me, although they clearly knew I was there. Curiosity being, afterall, a characteristic and indeed driving, trait among mustelids.
All of their hunts seemed to engage in the same strategy, and resembled deer-hunter’s “drives”. They would come from open water, and then snake their way through the cattails-underwater, mind you- and flush big mummichogs and small sunfish into the open. I watched them each successfully catch three smallish fish, and crunch-em right up. They also scared the bejeesus out of a hen Ruddy Duck who had taken to the reeds for the night- she pattered and half-flew like an Oxyur-outta-hell to get away from the two sinuously impish beasts.
The best part was, however, hearing them breathe. And they weren’t giving their loud defensive snorts, as alarmed otters do, they were just close enough, and the evening still enough, that when they surfaced, it was possible to hear them exhale. The first exhalation upon surfacing being the loudest and most emphatic-to clear the droplets from the sealable (no pun intended) nostrils, no doubt.
Dec
10
Opportunistic Red-tails, and further thoughts on human vs. Accipiter threat perception amongst passerines; 12/9
Filed Under Hawks, raptors | Leave a Comment
Quickly-
As the fields were getting mown at Hidden Valley today, it was most interesting watching the screeching Red-tails taking advantage of the man-made phenom. Like gulls following ploughs, or the prey-flushing in front of the havoc which used to be caused by fire in a natural world- at least 6 Red-tails were screeching, wheeling and stooping behind the mowers.
The sound alone was enough to make me want to buy a Mercury…or is it a Jeep?
Also, along the lines of unexpected threats:
I heard a nasty rustling in the brush at Higbee’s beach- on both sides of the path. I decided to give a characterstically vigourous spish. A Coopers Hawk Came in on the second round from the left, and a male Towhee popped up on the right. As soon as the Towhee saw that it popped up as the same time as the coop, it got frigidly still. While “looking” at me the whole time. I was five feet away, but it wasn’t until the Accipiter moved along that the Towhee, “unfroze”.
Think he winked at me as the hawk flew away…
Another, and one of at least four or five Coops seen today, was an adult in the hedge at home as I was leaving for work this evening. It was banded on its right leg, but unfortunately, the constraints of having to be on my way, and having a scope in the car prohibited getting a picture of the band and its number. Maybe he’ll stick…
(and as an aside, my vigorous pishing has brought in at least two Coops, a Red-tail, and a Red-shoulder in the last week, and them’s that don’t like a loud pish can chew on that.)
Oct
5
“Both” Kites in Cape May in Autumn-not for the first time
Filed Under Fall Migration, Rarities, birding norms, raptors | 4 Comments
Apparently there was a Swallow-tailed Kite in Cape May yesterday, which I missed beceause i was otherwise engaged. Thanks to everyone who left messages though!
The Mississippi Kite which has been around was also still in the neighborhood. (Although having looked at some photos, and based upon the ones I saw, there appear to have been at least two Mississippi Kites on the cusp of September/October this year)
This is the second time that both of the “usual” kites have occured on Cape Island in Autumn in recent years, the last being in August of 2003.
What is interesting about this Swallow-tailed is that there was also one in Sussex county the day before, as well as a handful of reports from that neighborhood as well. I would tend to think this was the same bird, but who would know really?
Now Autumn records of Swallow-tailed Kites are even rarer than those of Mississippi Kites. The first October and Autumn record for Cape May came in 1946, and another just last year, on the first day of October in 2007, which was encrypted with the idiom “Was reported”. There are also a handful of earlier fall records, mainly in August. (From a bird-study point of view, August is best considered fall, the way March is dedcidedly spring, although the August records may have been a result of persistent southerlies or tropical weather systems)
As an aside- that phrase “was reported” is usually used by the annalist to cast shadow on the identification, or observer, and let it be known that the birding establishment doesn’t really believe in the sighting. So, for the unintiated, or those new to birding, that is what the phrasology “was reported” means when it appears on a rare bird alert, or other birding news-letter or web-site
I had heard that folks were running around calling this double fall kite event unprecedented, but that is really a function of lack of experience, no attempt at any sort of fact-checking, and that twitching but not ornithological scholarship has become king in Cape May. If only there were more “ornithologists” and less twitchers in the birding “community”-such as it is. And would that a qualified ornithologist was again at the helm and running CMBO, Or at least good twitchers who actually took the time to research records before espousing authority on the subject resided in these parts.
(As a further aside, I have always had a strong aversion to the the newly popular term “birding community” and have no idea what is wrong with the word “hobbyists”, or calling us just plain birders. “Birding Community” sounds like some sort of cult, or otherwise weird subset of humans. The term siginifies an isolation from the rest of the population at large, which I believe further alienates the hobby and subtly helps make birding less mainstream than it should be. We hear nothing of the “Hiking Community” or “Trout-fishing Community”, do we? I will return to this subject without a doubt, as well as more on just how inappropriate it is to call the specifically notoriously cliquey Cape May scene, a “birding community”. As far as I can tell its some kind of nearly corporate or at least secondary school-like viscious popularity contest, and only a community in the very broadest way, much more in the manner the fundamentally nasty school cafeteria or cut-throat boardroom may be called “community”)
Would that I could get out in the field today, but again, have obligations. Leben heisst leben after all.