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10/14/2024 - American Golden Plover or Black-bellied Plover

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     Last Thursday I drove the beach at Island Beach State Park hoping to pick up a few fall birds that might be passing through the area, particularly an American golden-plover .  AG plovers (for short) are considered rare for us here in New Jersey, but fall is the best time to find one since their return migration route usually takes them down the eastern coast.  The northbound migration route for these arctic breeders is across the central United States, making them an even rarer find in the spring.  I have been successful the past years finding at least one AG plover by traveling the beach in September and October and scanning flocks of black-bellied plovers .  AG plovers usually associate with the more common and similarly looking black-bellied plovers (BB plovers, for short). The first plover I came upon yesterday was by itself, and it immediately caught my attention.  My first take was that this is a good candidate for an AG plover.  BB plovers and AG plovers look very similar i
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9/14/2024 - Cape May Pelagic: Blue Whale, Manta Rays, Brown Booby

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     This past Friday I drove down to Cape May for a 24 hour pelagic trip.  This was my third attempt for an overnight trip this year.  The previous two were cancelled due to weather and there were two other trips which I was unavailable.  This one was set to sail, and we left at 9 pm.  We reached our destination, Spencer Canyon, about 80 miles out, sometime after 5:30 am Saturday.  The day started out rather slow with some Wilson’s storm-petrels scattered around the area.  Action around the boat didn’t really start to pick up until later in the morning. The first interesting sighting was a small group of young Atlantic spotted dolphins .  They were young enough to not yet bear their namesake spots, which delayed their initial identification.  Until they start showing spots they might be confused with bottlenose dolphins .   These dolphins had a tricolored body and white-tipped beaks to help differentiate them from the bottlenose species. Spotted dolphins, sans spots.  © S. Weiss The
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Western Florida - “White-eyed” Eastern Towhee, and other New Critters

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     This past weekend my wife and I traveled to the Tampa area of Florida.  We spent nearly a week there to visit some family and to just get away.  It was no surprise to us that it was going to be hot, but damn, it was very hot.  I did not get in much birding, so I only added a few new year birds during this trip.  A few weeks earlier, when Hurricane Debby passed, I likely could have seen sooty terns , brown noddies and other tropical specials that had been pushed in along the coast.  While we were there, two South American rarities returned to the Sunshine State: a large-billed tern and a gray gull .  I had to pass on both birds because Florida is as big as it is hot.  From our hotel, the tern was at least a three-hour drive to the south, and the gull was at least a six-hour drive to the north. All the other birds reported on eBird in my general area were already on my life and Florida lists.  This trip I was intent on finding a subspecies that has eluded me on every previous vis
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7/14/24 - South Polar Skua

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     This past Sunday I joined my friend Captain John on another tuna fishing adventure.  We did slightly better this time than our previous trip.  We boated one yellowfin tuna on Sunday whereas we were skunked the previous Monday.  There were plenty of Wilson’s storm-petrels around, but no tuna.  What we needed to find out on the water was a more communal feeding event, such as one that also includes shearwaters, whales and dolphins.  Tuna would certainly be in the area.  There were no such feeding frenzies in the areas that we covered.  The marine life in general on Sunday was slower than the past few trips.  We saw only one distant whale and just a few dolphins.  Other than plenty of storm-petrels, I was able to pick up just a couple great shearwaters and several Cory’s shearwaters . Left, great shearwater.  Right, Cory’s shearwater .   © S. Weiss Five Cory’s shearwaters sitting on water.   © S. Weiss In mid-morning we came upon two commercial fishing boats.  They were netters.
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