While having my coffee this morning I watched a decent amount of bird activity in my yard. This cued me to head over to my favorite spot, Island Beach State Park, to see what last night’s favorable northwest winds brought there. As I was gathering together my binoculars and camera, I received an alert that a Kirtland’s warbler had been found in Cape May. I was pretty sure that this was a first state record for New Jersey, and it was. For a minute I thought about changing my route and head down to Cape May for what would be a new life bird for me. But I rationalized that the bird might not stick around for the time it would take me to drive the 80 miles to get to it. So, I continued to Island Beach.
The first bird I saw when I started my walk at the park was a Connecticut warbler. This in itself is a rare migrant in Ocean County. There is a small window of time in mid to late-September that this plain-looking, ground-foraging bird is normally found, and this was the fourth or fifth one that I have seen at the park in the past two weeks. I put an alert out for the bird even though I knew that most of New Jersey’s dedicated birders were making the Kirtland’s warbler a priority. I was surprised to run into my friend Scott, figuring he would have gone to Cape May. He said he debated going too but had afternoon commitments. As an accomplished birder, he had seen the bird before, but obviously not in New Jersey. As we walked and talked and birded, I kept tabs on the Kirtland’s updates. It became evident that the birding at Island Beach today was going to be mostly expected migrants, such as golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets and eastern phoebes. The Kirtland’s warbler was now meeting my personal criteria to chase a bird: it was a lifer, my chances of coming across the bird again would require greater effort and planning, and it appeared to be sticking around. So, I went home to pick up my wife and head down to Cape May.
Connecticut warbler © S. Weiss
A rare fall migrant in New Jersey. They are usually secretive, sulking on the ground in dense underbrush. They are one of a few walking warblers, like ovenbirds and waterthrushes, that don't have the hop in their steps. This one, like the others this year, have been seen walking out in the open along the trails.
When we were about 15 minutes or so from reaching the general location that the bird was last reported, a new alert came in that the bird was still there. We parked on the side of a dead-end road where other cars were, a good sign that we were in the right area. The entrance to Cape May County Park South was just in front of us and we walked the short path that led to the beach. I saw a small group of birders near the dunes about 100 yards up the beach. I told my wife, and she gave me the hand gesture to go on ahead without waiting for her to keep pace. When I reached the other birders, they said it was still around and actively feeding, but disappeared somewhere in the dune shrubs. Within just a minute or two someone spotted the bird popping out of the dunes. I got my camera on it when it flew towards me and landed on the ground right in front of me. This does not happen to me very often, actually hardly ever. Statistically, most bird chases end in disappointment. This, however, was one of my best chases, making the 90 minute or so drive well worth it.
Kirtland's warbler © S. Weiss
New Jersey's first state record Kirtland's warbler.
They migrate to and from the Bahamas to specialized nesting habitat, mostly in Michigan.
Kirtland’s warblers have one of the smallest breeding ranges in North America, with most of the population nesting in Michigan. They winter on the islands of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Their migration route takes them north through Florida and inland through Georgia, the western Carolinas and upwards to the Great Lakes region. New Jersey is not part of that route, northbound nor southbound. To make this story even more amazing, by the time I arrived back home, another alert came in that a second Kirtland’s warbler was found elsewhere in Cape May. It makes me wonder how many vagrant birds are actually around that go unnoticed.
*****
One other nature note for today, a couple young adults on a guided tour that Scott and I ran into at Island Beach found a small bat roosting on a tree along one of the trails. They showed us where it was. It was a very small bat, maybe three or so inches long clinging to the bark of a red cedar at eye level. It turned out to be a silver-haired bat. It apparently is a common bat found in New Jersey, but this was the first one for me - a new life bat.
Silver-haired bat © S. Weiss
This small bat was clinging to the bark of a red cedar, hiding behind a poison ivy vine. It is one of six bat species found in New Jersey.
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