Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     Usually, I wait until after the current year has passed and give a synopsis of new birds added to the New Jersey species list.  I prefer to wait for any potential new species to be accepted by the state’s Bird Records Committee, but this latest visitor is too incredible not to share now.  On May 11, three birders aboard the Cape May - Lewes Ferry photographed a shearwater in New Jersey waters.  Photos of the bird were posted on social media to help with its identification.  The odd shearwater turned out to be a streaked shearwater ! The normal range of streaked shearwaters is the Western Pacific Ocean, basically from Australia up along Japan and the Korean Peninsula during breeding season.  Sometimes they reach east to New Zealand and Hawaii out of breeding season.  Occasionally they have reached the U. S. mainland’s west coast.  This, however, is the first record of the species for the entire North Atlantic Ocean! AI generated ima...

      Last week my younger daughter, wife and I took a trip out to San Diego.  We wanted to follow up on a whale watching trip we took there last year.  In February 2024, we had a great time seeing several gray whales and a few hundred common dolphins .  We went out in May this year because we were told that is when we could see blue whales .  Unfortunately, after booking our flights and stay there we learned that June through July is actually the best blue whale season.  We kept our plans anyway and headed west.  What we also learned post-booking is that May is called Gray May in San Diego.  Yup, a marine layer from the Pacific Ocean forms over the coast creating mostly cool, overcast and moist conditions.  Left, Children’s pool and seal haul out at La Jolla Cove.  Right, ground cover draping the cliff sides at La Jolla Cove.   © S. Weiss The gray May conditions might have affected our whale watching trip.  We wen...

     After gusty winds yesterday and plenty of rain overnight, today turned out to be much nicer than I expected.  It remained mostly cloudy, but warm.  The wind was negligible and it was comfortable to be out in a tee shirt.  After a morning doctor’s appointment, I set out for Island beach State Park to see if the weather had brought any new year birds into the area.  As I approached the front gate of the park, I had to stop and safely back up when something caught my eye in the field outside the main entrance.  The birds that grabbed my attention were three Eastern meadowlarks .  They were my first of the year, and signaled a good start to the day. First-of-the-year Eastern meadowlark, 4/4/2025.   © S. Weiss I spent a little over three hours at the park, walking five miles mostly on the bayside trails.  I tallied 63 species for the day, five of which were new for the year.  I picked up my first blue-gray gnatcatchers of the...

      Today was foggy with a northeasterly wind.  I thought it would be a good day to walk and see if the weather would bring some interesting birds to the beach.  I left the mainland and drove over to one of our local beaches.  Unfortunately, as I crossed the bridge to the barrier island, the fog was a little heavier than I thought.  Visibility on the beach was limited.  I could barely see beyond the breakers and only made out a pair of laughing gulls , a common loon and a long-tailed duck . More surprising to me was the lack of gulls sitting on the beach, actually there were none.  Usually, they ground themselves with the fog and gather in groups facing into the wind.  I did notice that posts had been planted on the beach from the dunes towards the water line.  They held signage stating that the area behind this boundary was now a piping plover nesting area and that vehicles were prohibited.  I walked the nesting zone to it...

     Four new birds visited New Jersey last year to bring the state list to 503 species.  Two of the new birds are newly recognized species, having been split from other species last year.  The four new birds to visit the Garden State last year were common swift , Vega gull , Fea’s petrel and Scopoli’s shearwater .  Here is a summary of the new birds visited. On March, 9, 2024, a Vega gull was found at Gateway National Recreation Area in Sandy Hook, Monmouth County.   Vega gull became a new species in 2024.  It and three other new species were split from herring gull .  The other three species are American herring gull , European herring gull and Mongolian gull .  Vega gull is an Asian species.  It is very similar to American herring gull and its identification needs to be carefully scrutinized. On May 17, 2024, a swift larger than the expected chimney swifts was noticed in Cape May.  The original spotter photographed the bi...

     In my last post I wrote about the influx of greater white-fronted geese in the northeast and I made mention of two different bean geese north of New Jersey.  A taiga bean-goose had been reported in upstate New York and a tundra bean-goose was found in Rhode Island.  The taiga bean-goose was discovered at the end of last year north of Albany and had most recently been reported earlier this month.  The tundra bean-goose was discovered on January 18 in Portsmouth and still continues there.  Ironically, my daughter was living in Portsmouth up until about a year or so ago before moving elsewhere in Rhode Island.  Even though I have never seen a bean-goose (they are both Eurasian geese that rarely wander to America), and despite my daughter being a very short drive away from the tundra one, I chose not to make the chase for either. My thoughts for trying to see the tundra bean-goose changed last week when my daughter came home (her home away fro...

     I have noticed this winter to be a decent year for common mergansers and geese other than the widely distributed Canada goose species.  Common mergansers and other-than-Canada geese are not local breeders and are uncommon or, depending on the species, rare around Ocean County.  There are very few spots in the county to find common mergansers when they are around.  Many times, some of the sightings for common mergansers are incorrect identifications of the much more probable, red-breasted mergansers .  Sightings of the former are up this season.  They have been reported in several locations with as many as 135 at one location.  I saw mine for this year in January while checking a popular waterfowl hotspot at a local retail shopping mall.  While I was scanning the variety of duck species on the water, five common mergansers dropped on the water in front of me.  They were a nice change to see from all the red-breasted ones, and ...