Birds and Other Nature Sightings

   This past Friday I went on a 12-hour birding and marine life pelagic boat trip out of Cape May.  I was hoping to see jaegers (parasitic or possibly a pomarine), a couple different shearwaters or some other surprise birds.  Unfortunately, the only truly pelagic birds seen on the trip were some northern gannets, and they were on the inshore portion of the trip.  The only surprise birds we saw offshore were a couple of yellow-rumped warblers and a blackpoll warbler about 50 miles out.  As it turned out, they were the only birds we saw that far out. The trip, however, was salvaged by the whales we encountered on our way out and on our return to inshore waters.  In all, we saw seven humpback whales and a rarely encountered North Atlantic right whale.  On the way out, one of the humpback whales was very accommodating.  For what seemed like over a half hour, it surfaced time after time near the boat.  After surfacing and diving along one side of the boat, it would re-emerge on the other si

   Since the start of October, I have turned my birding attention to mostly Island Beach State Park.  My years of birding there have shown that October is the best time to find local rarities like American golden-plover, Baird’s sandpiper and lark sparrow, or fall specials like jaegers.  This October has not disappointed me because not only did I find all of these species so far this month, but I also added a black-headed gull to my park list. Back on October 3, I found a pair of lark sparrows in a grass field just outside of the park’s main gate.  This field hosts a weekly farmer’s market during the summer, but in the fall, sparrows enjoy the vacated lot.  In past seasons there have been clay-colored sparrows, dickcissels and meadowlarks occasionally mixing in with the regular song sparrows, white-throated sparrows, chipping sparrows and dark-eyed juncos.  The lark sparrows, along with a clay-colored sparrow, lingered at the field for several days to allow other birders to add them to

        For five days since last Saturday, New Jersey had been in the grip of a Nor’easter, battered by persistent 20-plus mile-per-hour northeast winds (stronger near the coast) and rain.  Finally, that system pulled away, and winds lightened and swung around out of the northwest Wednesday night, setting up a bird migration flight.  It was something to look forward to since, despite my efforts, sea watching in driving rain and strong winds yielded nothing.  I wasn’t expecting a banner flight of songbirds, and waterfowl movement is still to come.  But there are some second-chance birds (those that I missed on spring migration) to look out for, and a big push of sparrows has yet to occur.   I spent a couple of hours walking the trails and driving the beach at Island Beach State Park and although I logged over 60 species of birds, the activity waned as the day progressed.  Sparrows had moved in, but I did not pick up anything new for the year.  I saw the pair of Lark Sparrows that have b