Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     Last Friday night I joined the Cape May Whale Watch & Research Center on its first 24-hour pelagic trip of the year.  In the past, the June trips have been quite successful with a nice diversity of seabirds and marine life.  Like all pelagic trips though, you never know what you’ll see until you’re actually out there. We left the dock at 9 p.m. and headed out towards the area of the Wilmington Canyon.  We arrived there in the predawn light.  The sound of the American Star’s engine slowing down awakened all the sleeping passengers.  The boat came alive as everyone began rolling up sleeping bags; many multitasking while also brushing teeth, and some waiting for the coffee to finish brewing in the galley.  The crew, mostly consisting of college interns, began ladling out chum to start attracting the sea birds.  It wasn’t long before some came into view.  Wilson’s storm-petrels and a few shearwaters kicked off the day.  T...

    On Monday I birded my two favorite places, my yard and Island Beach State Park.  Now that June is upon us, much of last month’s migration activity has dwindled down and what’s here now as far as land birds is pretty much what will be so until late summer.  Nevertheless I still managed to find six flycatchers on the day.  One of the birds is always rare for our area and another is not easy to find during migration and now, post migration, is flagged as rare on eBird. The first bird I saw when I walked out my patio door in the morning was a large, backlit flycatcher high atop a dead tree snag.  A great crested flycatcher was calling in the general vicinity so at first that’s what I thought it was.  Yet something didn’t seem right for that ID.  I watched it for a few minutes and noticed it was much darker and wasn’t vocalizing when the great crested did.  I noticed it appeared to have a dark vest which turned my thoughts to an olive-sided f...

     This past Saturday I reached 2,500 consecutive days with at least one eBird checklist.  There are no awards or accolades for this, same as it is for those who must end the year with the most species for the county.  The streak is just a personal milestone, and I get to share some stats here as well. This streak started nearly seven years ago (6.84 to be more precise).  Mid-January of last year is when I hit 2,000 consecutive days.  In the past 500 days, I have submitted 922 checklists.  The checklists covered eight states and two oceans.  I listed around 340 different species, including eight new life birds.  The eight new birds were:   white-throated swift , Swinhoe’s white-eye , black oystercatcher , mitred parakeet , cave swallow , tundra bean-goose , Lazuli’s bunting and Bell’s vireo . Left, Swinhoe's white-eye in Manhattan Beach, CA.  Right, mitred parakeet in Long Beach, CA.   © S. Weiss Northern red bisho...

     Usually I wait until the after the current year has passed and give a synopsis of new birds added to the New Jersey species list.  I prefer to wait for any potential new species to be accepted by the state’s Bird Records Committee, but this latest visitor is too incredible not to share now.  On May 11, three birders aboard the Cape May - Lewes Ferry photographed a shearwater in New Jersey waters.  Photos of the bird were posted on social media to help with its identification.  The odd shearwater turned out to be a streaked shearwater ! The normal range of streaked shearwaters is the Western Pacific Ocean,  basically from Australia up along Japan and the Korean Peninsula during breeding season.  Sometimes they reach east to New Zealand and Hawaii out of breeding season.  Occasionally they have reached the U. S. mainland’s west coast.  This, however, is the first record of the species for the entire North Atlantic Ocean! AI gene...

      Last week my younger daughter, wife and I took a trip out to San Diego.  We wanted to follow up on a whale watching trip we took there last year.  In February 2024, we had a great time seeing several gray whales and a few hundred common dolphins .  We went out in May this year because we were told that is when we could see blue whales .  Unfortunately, after booking our flights and stay there we learned that June through July is actually the best blue whale season.  We kept our plans anyway and headed west.  What we also learned post-booking is that May is called Gray May in San Diego.  Yup, a marine layer from the Pacific Ocean forms over the coast creating mostly cool, overcast and moist conditions.  Left, Children’s pool and seal haul out at La Jolla Cove.  Right, ground cover draping the cliff sides at La Jolla Cove.   © S. Weiss The gray May conditions might have affected our whale watching trip.  We wen...