CAPE ISLAND CREEK PRESERVE

   Cape Island Creek, TNC's Preserve in West Cape May (Wilson Ave. off Seashore Rd.), is close to my house and I visit it regularly as part of their Citizen Science Project.  I rode over there this afternoon looking for a few early migrants, hoping maybe for a Phoebe, an Osprey, Bluebirds, you know, the usual March suspects.  I was actually accumulating a fairly nice list when over my shoulder, twenty feet off the ground, a Swallow-tailed Kite came soaring, floating really, so gracefully and buoyantly over one of the fields.  It was a life bird for me, or Life Bird, or LIFE BIRD, depending on how reverently you worship your life list.  And it was absolutely unmistakable: creamy white head and sharply defined black and white wings, along with the deeply forked tail.  Sibley describes its "incredibly graceful, flowing flight." Hard to mistake this bird for any other.  They are Florida nesters but show up here occasionally (rarely?) in spring each year.  In most years there may be one or two sightings around Cape May, and most of these are later, mid-April to early May.  This was a real treat for me today.
   I would have been happy with just the Phoebe!

Here's the rest of my list for this breezy, sunny early spring afternoon:

-Fish Crow
-Red-winged Blackbird
-Turkey Vulture
-Black Vulture
-American Crow
-Song Sparrow
-Northern Cardinal
-Field Sparrow
-Red-tailed Hawk
-Black Duck
-Herring Gull
-Eastern Phoebe
-Mourning Dove
-Blue jay
-White-throated Sparrow
-Northern Mockingbird
-House Finch
-Canada Goose
-Swamp Sparrow
-Yellow-rumped Warbler
-Northern Flicker
-Purple Martin
-Tree Swallow
-Swallow-tailed Kite
-Robin
-Downy Woodpecker
-Brown Thrasher
-Gray Catbird