I'll never be better than a C+ birder for a number of reasons.  First, my hearing is pretty well shot when it comes to many of the high-pitched bird songs. 
   And I hate waking up early. 
   But I've been promising myself a spring fling at Indian Trail, and the weather finally cooperated so this morning I bit the bullet, woke up at 5 and hit the trial at 6.
   It was just after daybreak, and apparently the Great Horned and Barred Owl and the Whippoorwills had gone in for the morning.  But everyone else was wide awake and singing.  This was the first time I've been here since the Great Indian Trail Cleanup of April 3, and what a treat it was to walk up the powerline trail and not see all the trash, plywood, tires, bottles, etc.! It just made for a much more enjoyable atmosphere in general.. Many many thanks to all who helped on that day.
   I was on a mission today to see if I could scare up one or both of two elusive warblers: Prothonotary and Kentucky, both of which have bred down in the wet, swampy areas in the past.  The Kentucky in particular has become scarce, so I wasn't really all that confident.  But I knew there would be lots more to see.  I was right.  Here's my list for the morning:

IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:
EASTERN TOWHEE
WHITE-EYED VIREO
CAROLINA WREN
OVENBIRD
MOURNING DOVE
WOOD THRUSH
WILD TURKEY
INDIGO BUNTING
COMMON GRACKLE
NORTHERN CARDINAL
HERRING GULL (FLYOVER)
CANADA GOOSE
SCARLET TANAGER
RED-TAILED HAWK
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER
WOOD DUCKS (BREEDING PAIR)
AMERICAN GOLDFINCH
LAUGHING GULL (FLYOVER)
RED-WING BLACKBIRD
BLUE JAY
DOWNY WOODPECKER
COMMON TERN (FLYOVER)
YELLOW-BELLIED CUCKOO (BREEDING PAIR)
RED-EYED VIREO
CAROLINA CHICKADEE
BLUE GROSBEAK (BREEDING PAIR)
COMMON TERN (FLYOVER)
COMMON CROW
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER
PINE WARBLER
RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD (WITH A RUBY THROAT!)
SPOTTED SANDPIPER
GLOSSY IBIS (FLYOVER)
AMERICAN ROBIN
SUMMER TANAGER (FEMALES ONLY TODAY; MALES WERE HIDING)
TUFTED TITMOUSE
HAIRY WOODPECKER
BLACK AND WHITE WOODPECKER
BLUE GRAY GNATCATCHER
BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD

BUTTERFLIES:
LITTLE WOOD SATYR
RED ADMIRAL

OTHER:
GREEN FROGS
WHITE-TAILED DEER

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   Good news:  I found the second Oystercatcher nest today.  It contained, as I had guessed yesterday, one egg.  Yesterday's Love-Fest was a success!
   Bad news:  Only one adult was guarding the egg, and pretty poorly at that I might add.  Just sort of standing around, walking aimlessly at first and then leading me straight to the nest.  Not real textbook behavior for a conscientious brooding parent.  Usually they try to lead you away from the nest, sometimes feigning a broken wing.  And where was the second adult?  Again, maybe off somewhere else feeding, but (see photo) the Merlin were on the beach again today (see yesterday's post).  They were obviously causing some distress to the AMOy and Sanderlings alike, and again I saw no Piping Plovers today.
   Good news:  The two eggs in AMOY nest #1 seem to be fine, but---
   Bad news:  Why are there still only two?  Should be three by now, maybe four.  and---
   Bad news:  Still only one parent guarding the nest.  Things look bleak, but maybe tomorrow.......
   Good news:  Beach nesting birds have a pretty good ability to re-nest after misfortune.  They still have plenty of time before their reproductive window closes.  So I continue to observe and report.  Detached, impartial.  It's all good, right?
   I just wish whoever has been driving their freaking truck on the Coast Guard beach every day would get stuck in the sand at high tide. 
   Other birds returning to Two Mile:  Common Yellowthroat, Willets, Clapper Rail and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  Still in the ocean are Red-throated Loons and an occasional Gannet.

  
   Oystercatcher (AMOY) nest #1 now has two eggs, which is good news.  The bad news is that only one adult seems to be hanging around at the nest.  Where is the second bird?  It's been several days since I've seen them both. I did notice today that this single-parent bird is sitting on the eggs, so that's good.  I'll check again tomorrow and hopefully all will be well, a third egg will appear, and our Family Unit will be preserved.
   There was another problem today: Merlins.  Three of them.  Hunting in a pack along the dunes and on the beach.  I saw the first one sitting on a snag a hundred feet from AMOY nest one.  Then two more appeared and they began their "attack campaign."  They would fly as a group offshore for a hundred yards, then turn and come screaming at low altitude back toward the beach.  The AMOY seemed a little nervous, but they have a size advantage over the Merlin so they are probably OK.  At least as long as there is smaller prey available, like Sanderlings and, gulp, Piping Plovers.  Is it just a coincidence that I have not seen a Plover in two days?  I think not, but I have no evidence one way or the other.
   Life on the beach is no picnic, for the birds at least.
   The two AMOY's in the photo above were hanging out down near the jetty, looking nestish.  There was a lot of leading and following, head dipping, slow walking and sitting, some scraping here and there,  some whistling, billing and cooing.  Then, in plain sight of adults and children alike, he is on top of her, in broad daylight (well, it was pretty foggy, but come on folks, you're on the beach.  get a room!  I'm taking this as a sure sign that they're a couple and will soon produce a real nest and an egg to show for their efforts.
  

    
  

BEACH SAND
 by Raymond A. Foss
 Maybe it is the memories
the change of pace that brings us there
the sense of vacation
maybe the smell of the place
the sights of the gulls, the dunes, the grasses
but oh it is the feel of it,
the crunch and slide of it
the feeling of beach sand
so different from dirt, soil, loam
no, not earthy, moist, rich,
but oh so granular and gritty
even when wet,
moveable paper spreading under toes
sliding beneath the soles
smoothing my skin
clearing my mind
unburdening me of the rest
drawing me to the tactile, the feel
of beach sand.

  After a couple of weeks of watching Oystercatchers make scrape after scrape all over the Two Mile beach, I'm pleased to announce that one lucky couple has settled on a nest site and has given birth to their first egg. 
   I expect that another egg will be there each day for the next three days.  This is probably the same pair that had a nest in almost the same exact spot on the Refuge beach last year.  Plenty of predators will be on hand to make the next several weeks dangerous ones for this family: crows, gulls, coyotes, ghost crabs, trespassing beach walkers, etc.
   Another pair of Oystercatchers has been showing signs of being nest-ready further down the beach near the jetty.  I'm confident that they will decide on a location and lay their first egg soon, maybe tomorrow.  I don't like to bother them too much when I'm doing the survey, but it's important to make a visual confirmation of the number of eggs and their condition, so I don't feel badly about snapping a photo or two of the little bundles of joy as I walk past.  The birds squawk at me a bit and do their little broken-wing charade to throw me off the track, but I'm much too smart for that trick.  And after I walk by, they always return within a minute or two to continue their parental duties (which they share, by the way).
   Again today a group of 4-6 piping plovers was down by the jetty looking nest-ish.  Lots of courtship behavior, piping, bowing, strolling, scraping, sitting, feather-ruffling, etc.  I'll look tomorrow and see if any of the scrapes have become real nests.  I'm cautiously optimistic, but last year I observed the same sorts of behavior, and no real nests were ever made there. 
   Elsewhere at Two Mile, the American Copper butterflies were once again abundant.  New bird arrivals included the  white-eyed vireos, one of the few birds that sing pretty much continuously throughout the day, and yellowthroat warblers. Boat-tailed Grackles were showing off their iridescent black tails all along the powerlines along Ocean Drive.
   Sanderlings, as I reported a few days ago, are still absent on the beach.  At least eight or nine Osprey were feeding in the breakers today, all of them calling.  Bottlenose dolphin numbers are building just offshore.
   I saw deer tracks on the beach today, not the first time I've seen them but always interesting and somewhat surprising.
 

(I'm back on the job as Piping Plover Surveyor at Two Mile Beach this week and next.)
   The beach never really changes.  Correction, the beach is constantly changing.  So which is it?  Discuss amongst yourselves.
   I arrive at 10am and the first birds I see are two piping plovers hanging around the wet sand near the north boundary fence (the Wildwood Crest border).  The next birds I don't see are sanderlings.  None.  As far as I can see down the beach, not a one.  Two weeks ago they were here by the hundreds.  maybe thousands.  Now none.  Interesting.  Did someone send out a Twitter alert about a sanderling flash mob somewhere in South Philly?  Did their internal alarm go off saying it's time to go breed somewhere north of here??
   The beach is quiet without them, although I see some red-throated loons and gannets offshore, and a few black-backed gulls on the beach.  Some forster's terns screaming and four or five osprey fishing in the breakers.  Every few minutes a long, dark vee of cormorants flies north across the beach.  They are on the move too.

   No more plovers until I'm about ready to head for the barn.  I'm looking up the Coast Guard beach through my binoculars for signs of plovers when out of the corner of my eye I see movement.  I look down and there are four of them, about 20 ft. in front of me, just sort of sauntering up the beach toward the dune, not very concerned about me at all.  If I had been quicker with the camera I could have had a decent shot of them.  But I want to put some space between myself and them and I quickly head toward the base of the dune, where I sit and watch them for awhile. 
   There are two couples, I figure.  They are more concerned about romance than food.  One (male?) ruffles up his feathers and does this macho little charge right up to the (female?).  She bows her head forward a little and tips and fans her tail up the air as she spreads her wings.  How subtle.  "How do ya like this??" she seems to say.  He looks.  She likes that he looks.  She repeats the gesture; he is still looking.   She slowly moves away and he follows.  She sits in a depression in the sand. I'm thinking it's not a nest (yet) but I will be back tomorrow to see if they're still here. Ah, love is in the air.
   PS: Some good birding at the Boardwalk Trail today!  At least a dozen green-winged teal, several snowy and great egrets, a pair of northern shovelers, (photo above) and more.  This is a transitional season, and you never know what you might find back there.  Bring your scope and walk slowly.
   PPS: The Wild Meadow at the Visitor's Center is coming to life.  Many of the plugs, plants and seeds we planted there last fall are sprouting new life, and butterflies are already investigating.  I counted American Copper (see photo above), Spring Azure, Clouded Sulphur, and Cabbage White.

   My TNC friend Joe and I meet on Bucks Ave., determined  to do some early spring birding and botany and bushwhacking on the newest Refuge property, the Braddock Tract.  It's been a rainy day but now the sun is out and the temperature is creeping into the sixties again.  We are dressed for the wet in hip boots, not my favorite hiking footwear but I'm sure they will come in handy.  Joe is totally into wet places this year and there are plenty of them to explore in CMC!
   We take a sneak peek on the neighboring TNC preserve to check out the swamp pink that grows there and sure enough we find it, just about ready to begin blooming.  We talk about coming back in a week or so to see it in full bloom. 
   We cross the border onto Refuge land.  Could we find swamp pink on the Braddock Tract?  Why not??  The terrain, vegetation, habitat etc. is essentially the same.  We search for awhile but without success.  Joe has theories.  I do not.  It just seems odd to me that it would only grow on the north side of the swamp (TNC) and not the south (FWS).
   For awhile there is a nice little path into the tract, but soon it disappears in a jumble of blow-down pines and catbrier.  It's dry though, and we pick our way in the general direction of the marsh.  Joe is sure we can walk all the way to the marsh.  he has looked at GPS maps, and a new kind of topo map called "lidar," which shows subtle differences in elevation.  His GPS maps show a maze of old trails and roads throughout the property, probably remnants of old logging and hunting paths.  But it's slow going these days.
   There are no birds in the woods today. In a week or so maybe Prothontary Warblers, or Wood Thrush and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.   We pick up a shadow of a remnant of a path, which leads us improbably back to civilization, someone's back yard (probably a house on Goshen Rd.) We check the GPS and change directions a bit and are soon ass deep in a vernal pond.  Well, not quite ass deep.  Joe assures me that the water will not rise above our hip boots.  I always believe him and he's right.  The water is black and still.  I cannot see my feet.  Is it quite thrilling to be here.  Spring peepers are everywhere.  Fresh deer tracks in teh soft ground, and a few old (and one new) deer stands in the trees.
   Out of the spung, onto a dry path again, we stop to check out a little low-growing flowering plant.  It has pink and white tubular flowers and flat, shiny oval-shaped leaves.  I take a few pictures.  (Back home I decide that it's Trailing Arbutus, a native wildflower that I've seen before in the Pine Barrens.  I should have gotten down and smelled it, as Arbutus is quite fragrant.  Maybe we can find it again next week if we come back to see the pinks.
   Finally we reach the edge of the open marsh.  Beautiful!  A Red-tailed hawk soars across the creek, which is a tributary of Bidwell's Creek.  This must be Tick Neck, which I've seen on maps but never in person from this vantage point.  Up from the south we see a large, dark bird soaring up the creek.  It is an immature bald eagle.  He passes close enough to us that we can see the patches of white on his dark wings.  A small flock of cedar waxwings flits across the creek and lands in the woods further down.  A large house sits alone at the edge of the marsh on the other side, at the end of an unseen road, a house in the middle of nowhere.  I wonder when was the last time the occupants may have seen anyone looking at them from here? 
   We try walking along the edge of the marsh and it's OK, not too soft, but be careful of little traps of mud and hidden ditches along the way.  Is that a muskrat trail?  Or a river otter?
We round a bend and find an old hunting blind next to the sweetest little duck hole!  The blind was nothing more than a couple of wooden skids nailed together with a crude bench behind, long-neglected but probably still usable with a little new camouflage and string of decoys.  I think Joe is filing this place away in his mind for the future.  but it's NOT an easy place to get to... or find, for that matter.  We are far from any road.  Maybe some folks who live on Bucks Ave. know how to get here, but it's not certain how long it's been since anyone was here.
   We head back to the cars but again the trails close up and we are picking our way.  We make one last trip into the swamp looking for pinks.  What I find almost as cool are the
white cedars.  One big one is so badly twisted at the base that the bark had separated from the trunk.  This is not a recent injury, Joe decides,because the bark had already re-formed under the wound.  These are awesome trees.
   Three hours after we start,  we are back at the road.  Ready for a return visit soon.

   Refuge Biologist Heidi Hanlon has once again asked me to help out with her annual Piping Plover Survey at Two Mile Beach as she traveled to Massachusetts for a conference this week.  Of course I jumped at the chance.  I stood in for her for a couple of weeks last year   also and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  The Two Mile beach was closed to the public on April 1, so apart from an occasional scofflaw, I have the beach to myself. 
   How many people, particularly in New Jersey, can ever make that claim, especially during this most beach-worthy season? 
   Piping Plovers return to their nesting areas along the coast in late March and early April.  Heidi's survey involves walking from the north boundary of the Refuge beach (at the southern end of Wildwood Crest), down the Coast Guard beach and all the way to the Cape May inlet jetty.  See plovers, watch plovers, count plovers.  Try to make them feel at home!
   The problem with Plover counting is finding them.  They have this uncanny ability to become invisible.  You can be looking right at one and not see it unless it decides to move.  They tend to hang out near large flocks of sanderlings on the wet sand at the water's edge, but generally a bit further away from the water.  The ratio of Sanderling to Plover on the Two Mile beach recently has been about 500 to 1.  But just when I would about give up finding a Plover, one would appear, as if my magic. 
   Here are summaries of my  plover surveys so far:

March  26:  five Plovers observed feeding in the wet sand in front of the north observation platform.  This is a good start!  It's still hasn't started to warm up and the plovers are back.

March  30: No Plovers observed.  Pooh.  It's rainy and windy and I chalk it up to bad weather.  I'm sure there are Plovers here; they just chose to go unobserved today.

April 2: Jackpot.  18 Plovers observed!  15 were on the FWS beach; the remaining 3 were on the Coast Guard beach.  And there was evidence of "scrapes" (false or trial nests) being made in the dry sand where plovers like to nest.  The temp has risen to the low 50's.  Things are looking great for a nest somewhere on the beach.

April 5: A warm, sunny day.  Lots of Plover tracks in the dry sand high on the beach, where Plovers like to nest.  No Plovers on the FWS beach, but 9 were hanging out at the Coast Guard beach, feeding, wandering around, maybe house-hunting?

April 6: No Plovers observed.  :(  However, a pair of Oystercatchers was hanging around the FWS beach, looking nest-ish, making scrapes up on the dune about where they nested last year.  They are amazing birds and fun to watch.

April 8: Today the southwest wind was blowing almost 30mph, so it was a struggle even walking on the beach.  And for the first hour, all I could see were Sanderlings, and even they were difficult.  Hard to hold the binocs steady, sand blowing into my eyes, my ears, my boots, everywhere.  But finally, the Plovers appeared:  three pairs and one single, all on the FWS beach, close to the "overwash area" that has been built for them by Heidi and Jack.  Seven Plovers, hiding behind any patch of dune grass or wrack they could find to get out of the howling wind.  I'm glad I decided to stick it out today, even though I'm still digging sand out of my ears.

   Heidi returns today, so I'll be off duty for a couple of weeks.  But she has another trip planned later in the month so I'll be back, hopefully monitoring nests and chicks!

Here are some other birds I saw while doing the surveys:

OCEAN/BEACH:
-Red-throated Loon
-Common Loon
-Glossy Ibis (flyover)
-Double-crested Cormorant
-Cooper's Hawk
-Purple Sandpipers
-Long-tailed Ducks (Oldsquaws)
-Northern Gannets
-Forsters terns
-Black Scoters


BACK BAY/OCEAN DRIVE PONDS:
-Belted Kingfisher
-Green-wing Teal
-Blue-wing Teal
-Greater Yellowlegs
-Red-breasted mergansers
-Black Ducks
-Great Egret
-Mute Swan

   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

The Late Wisconsin Spring
by John Koethe

Snow melts into the earth and a gentle breeze   
Loosens the damp gum wrappers, the stale leaves   
Left over from autumn, and the dead brown grass.   
The sky shakes itself out. And the invisible birds   
Winter put away somewhere return, the air relaxes,   
People start to circulate again in twos and threes.   
The dominant feelings are the blue sky, and the year.   
—Memories of other seasons and the billowing wind;   
The light gradually altering from difficult to clear
As a page melts and a photograph develops in the backyard...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Today was a tease of a day.  It felt like spring, looked like spring, sounded like spring, but was it really spring?  The calendar said no, still another couple of days, yet... The sun was warm, the snow gone, no cold wind.  But the trees are still bare, the grass still brown, the mud still... muddy.  Would those "invisible birds return?"
   Well, I must say the birds today were quiet, hardly appearing  in numbers suggesting any sort of spring migration taking place at Indian Trail.  A few raptors overhead, a Towhee, some resident Cardinals and Mockingbirds.  I had hoped to see a few Phoebes, maybe an early Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, but no such luck.  The real stars today were the frogs, mostly Chorus Frogs. They were many and loud and happy. 
     The powerline trail was wet in spots, but not impossible to navigate in knee boots.  It was the trail leading down into the swamp that  went beyond "wet."  These puddles have become true "vernal ponds." I can say this for certain because one of the defining features of a vernal pond is the presence of frog egg masses, and these were plentiful.  Probably wood frog eggs. I did hear one calling at midday (even though they tend to do their best singing in the evening and early morning).  And NJ Chorus frogs everywhere.  Chorus frogs outnumbered spring peepers by about a thousand to one today.  Learn about vernal ponds here, and learn the calls of NJ frogs here. 
   A few anglewing butterflies made a welcome appearance:  a comma and a mourning cloak.  Both of these species overwinter as adults and appear in late winter and early spring on warm days. 

Today's List of Birds, etc.:

-Turkey Vulture
-Black Vulture
-Red-tailed Hawk
-Northern Cardinal
-Cooper's Hawk
-Towhee
-Northern Mockingbird
-Blue Jay
-Tufted Titmouse
-Red-bellied Woodpecker
-American Crow
-Wild Turkey

Frogs:
-Chorus frogs
-Spring peepers
-Wood frog

Butterflies:
-Eastern comma
-Mourning cloak

Other:
-White-tailed deer