Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     On Sunday, I left home at 4:30 in the morning for Cape May to join a 12-hour pelagic trip aboard the American Star.  It was cold, about 35 degrees, but for mid-February in New Jersey that is not bad.  I go out on pelagics whenever I can because there are birds and other sea life out on the ocean that you just cannot find on land.  My previous pelagic trip last month was windy, colder with snow flurries.  Weather conditions this time were better, and my expectations were a little high.  This winter has been exceptional for alcids along the northeastern Atlantic, from New York to North Carolina.  I knew leaving home that this was an opportunity to see maybe five different alcids:   razorbill , dovekie , Atlantic puffin , common and thick-billed murres .  For the day, we scored four of the five; only missing a thick-billed murre.  The tally for the day was 282 razorbills, 55 dovekies, one puffin and one common murre, plus s...

   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 sid...

     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-for...

       Yesterday I decided to leave the comforts of my local environs to look for a few birds that are rare to New Jersey.  The most opportune place to go to do this is Cape May.  Even though New Jersey is a small state, the drive from home in Ocean County to Cape May is still about 90 miles.  So, taking the drive needed to be calculated, meaning I would go when the chances were better for finding a new state bird.  The other day a magnificent frigatebird had been soaring over Cape May and a gray kingbird recently appeared.  When I saw that the kingbird was seen again in the morning, I decided to take the trip south.  No frigatebird was yet reported, but you never know what might show up in Cape May at this time of year.  Maybe a swallow-tailed kite, a white-winged dove or an anhinga might make an appearance while I'm there.   When I got to Cape May, the reports were that the kingbird was still around.  I drove to the...