Birds and Other Nature Sightings

      According to eBird, there are 400 species of birds on the Ocean County, NJ list.  This lofty number includes vagrants, one-day wonders and historical records (the latter is what I refer to as those that were last seen before the year 2000).  The list also does not include exotic species and escapees.  The list does include a few ghost birds ; birds that I know are around, but they seem to always elude detection.  One such ghost bird in the county is the Pileated Woodpecker.  A few live in the western portion of the county, particularly around New Egypt in Plumsted Township.  Most of the birders around here know where to look for them, but most search attempts are usually futile.  Today, I lucked out.  I went to one of their “known” locations and was able to see one and hear another. Pileated woodpeckers, Fort Mose Historic State Park, St. Augustine, FL (2018).   © S. Weiss The pair in the left photo is of a female (left) and a male (right).  The male is distinguished from the fem

      Last month my wife and went to visit our daughter in Rhode Island.  That visit coincided with a Green-tailed Towhee visiting Sachuest Point Wildlife Refuge, a ten minute drive from our hotel.  Despite the several hours over the span of a few days I never found the bird.  I believe it was only seen once, very briefly, by someone else during my visit.  Amazingly, a second green-tailed towhee, a sharp-dressed vagrant from the west, was also visiting Fairfield, CT.  Since the location of that bird was barely three miles off of Interstate 95, we detoured there on our way home.  Like the Rhode Island bird, I missed it by a day.  Likewise, this latest visit also coincided with a rare bird sighting.  Earlier in the week, a Common Gull was photographed at a state park only about 10 miles from my daughter’s apartment. I monitored the ABA rarity sightings during the week and the bird was not reported again.  However there was one visiting Fairfield County in Connecticut.  This location wa

      A week after a 12-hour pelagic out of Cape May, my friend Jason and I took the seven-plus hour drive to North Carolina’s Outer Banks for a one day pelagic.  The company there is a leader of east coast pelagics, attracting participants from around the world.  Captain Brian normally operates his Stormy Petrel II vessel out of Hatteras during the spring and summer.  This trip ran out of Oregon Inlet in Nags Head, shortening our commute by better than an hour each way.  The drive took us through iconic Outer Banks towns like Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.  Many think of Kitty Hawk as the place where Orville and Wilbur Wright made aviation history with the first flight, but that actually occurred in neighboring Kill Devil Hills.  My first thoughts of the latter location are where the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore brought live updates of approaching hurricanes. The Wright Brothers National Memorial, N. Croatan Highway in Kill Devil Hills, NC.   © S. Weiss Our trip brought us to th