I got a text message at 6 am from Dave LaPuma saying simply: "Go birding today!" I guessed that he was at Higbees Beach with the folks who monitor the early-morning flights of warblers and other birds that have just crossed the Bay and are coming into the maritime forests to rest and refuel. And I guessed that his text meant there were birds about. I guessed right. It didn't really seem like a great morning for birding at first; it was gray, foggy, humid; no wind to speak of let alone that great northwest wind that seems to trigger the migration of raptors and others. But little by little we began to see that there had been indeed a pretty significant flight of migrating birds overnight. Joe Smith was today's leader. Here's a partial list for the morning: Osprey (abundant) Peregrine falcon Merlin Sharp-shinned hawk Turkey vulture Great egret Tree Swallow Cormorant Forsters tern Royal tern Belted kingfisher Eastern kingbird Common yellowthroat Black and white warbler Black-throated blue warbler Redstart Philadelphia vireo Red-eyed vireo White-eyed vireo Olive-sided (?) flycatcher Goldfinch Robin Cedar waxwing Semipalmated plover Great black backed gull Herring gull Gray catbird Seaside sparrow Ruby-throated hummingbird Add Comment Friends Family Bird Walk #1, Two mile Beach 09/03/2011
A beautiful day, warm sun, cool breeze. Our first-ever Free Family Bird Walk! Bean Eberly led the group today, a small but cheerful collection of folks. We started off by walking to the new marsh Trail (New Boardwalk), spent some time there, then down to the beach observation platform. There was surely enough variety for everyone. Here's our list for today: BALD EAGLE (IN THE DEAD TREE TO THE LEFT OF BIRD BLIND) CORMORANTS FORSTERS TERNS LEAST TERNS GREAT EGRETS TREE SWALLOWS SEDGE WREN (?) GRAY CATBIRD WHITE-EYED VIREO EASTERN TOWHEE TURKEY VULTURE BROWN PELICANS RED KNOTS SANDERLINGS SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS BLACK SKIMMERS HERRING GULLS GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULLS LAUGHING GULLS Friends Family Bird Walk #1, Two mile Beach 09/03/2011
Beach Survey #5: Wind, Rain... and Love 04/05/2011
Today was one of those unpredictable early-April days that starts with a storm and ends with a storm, but with a 15-degree drop in temperature in between. I waited till the first storm ended, checked the radar, and decided to take a chance at a survey before the next front arrived. I hadn't counted on the 30-knot southwest wind blowing on the beach. I started my survey at the jetty so the windblown sand was at my back, which made life bearable and birds visible. And there were birds. A few... - two pairs of Piping Plovers (sure, much lower than last week's totals, but hopefully these birds may be the ones that end up nesting here.) -two pairs of Oystercatchers, both looking very amorous and searching for a nice spot to nest high on the beach. I'm guessing that we'll see a nest within the next week or so. -a few Ruddy Turnstones, not looking too ruddy just yet -a nice grouping of Purple Sandpipers on the jetty rocks.  Purple Sandpiper (photo by author). Cold Day at the Beach 03/26/2011
 Dead Surf Scoter on the beach. Another cold day at the Two Mile beach today, a good day for shorbirds but with one sad note. Here are the high and low lights: -another thousand shorebirds (conservative estimate), all Dunlins and Sanderlings; -33 Piping Plovers, a new personal high for me. Will any stick around and nest? -a nice group of Gannets dive-bombing offshore; -a pair of Harlequin ducks (below) off the jetty, accompanied by hundreds of Surf and Black Scoters; -a pair of white-tailed deer near the visitor's center; -sadly, I spotted a Surf Scoter sitting on the beach, alive but obviously sick and unable to fly. By the time I got to it, it had died. A beautiful bird even in death (see above).  Harlequin Duck (center surrounded by Surf Scoters. (photo by author) Back to the Beach 03/24/2011
 Dunlin, winter plumage. (Photo by author) It's Day One of this season's shorebird survey at Two Mile, and again I'm taking over for Heidi while she spends a couple weeks doing some more habitat restoration work in the Gulf. Not exactly Spring-like on the beach: 42 degrees, a cold northeast wind, clouds and mist. But I have the beach to myself, which is the way I like it. Well, myself and hundreds upon hundreds of sandpipers and dunlin, maybe 1300 or so by my estimated count, traveling north up the beach in flocks of a 25-100 birds, briefly lighting near the foam to feed for a bit, then taking off en masse to move a couple hundred yards before settling down again. It really is an impressive number of shorebirds and it emphasizes the importance of protecting this beach. A group of five Piping Plovers manage to appear through the mist, separating themselves from the mob of other shorebirds by wandering up onto the dryer sand and drift line, poking through the dead phrag for bugs, maybe looking for a nice spot to settle down and raise a family. From one bird I see a brief ruffling of feathers, a half-hearted feint at another, maybe a preliminary practice mating move, and a few small, faint whistled "peeps" and one "peep-lo." Even with the north wind in my ears I can pick this sound out. Winter plumage Dunlin are pretty nondescript birds but still easily separated from Sanderlings by their longer, down-curved bill and darker over-all color. WHen feeding, the two species seem to share the same niche; when they fly, they often separate themselves by species. Now is a good time for you to come to the beach and learn these two birds. There will be plenty of them here for at least the next few weeks I think. And here's one thing I've learned about the Piping Plover: if I'm looking down the beach and see a shorebird, it's pretty certain that it's not a PIPL. Only when they separate themselves from the flock and start moving higher on the dry sand can you pick them out. It's always something I seem to see out of the corner of my eye, a bird that looks just a little different from the rest of the throng. A few Red-throated Loons float offshore, beginning to show a little breeding color, and a couple of Ruddy Turnstones add to the fun.  Sanderling. Notice the shorter, straighter bill, lighter overall color. (Photo by author)  Monarch butterfly on Seaside Goldenrod today. Almost imperative that I write a blog entry tonight, considering the Friend's Forward newsletter included a feature story on me and this blog in its fall edition (look for it on pg. 7, complete with photo. Thanks Kendall!) The entire issue is devoted to Friends groups and "New Media," i.e., Twitter, Facebooks, websites, blogs, etc. So, today I find myself manning the Two Mile Visitor Contact Station for the first of a series of regular Tuesday morning bird walks offered by the New Jersey Audubon Society. It is cool, overcast but not raining and there are hawks about! Almost immediately we are greeted by Cooper's Hawks dive-bombing the bayberry shrubs in search of warblers or Catbirds or Brown Thrashers who may be hiding there, some of whom might just be exhausted by a long night's migration flight. Higher up, a steady flight of Sharp-shined Hawks, Merlins, and occasional Kestrels. Two or three Ospreys wander by, not our residents, but migratory birds following the coast south. A couple of Great Blue Herons join the parade, and all this while everyone is still standing in the parking lot! I wait at the building while the group of birders heads for the beach and jetty. I have weeds to pull. Make that "invasive non-native forbs." Herbaceous flowering plants. There are no such things as weeds, you know. What I am after today is a plant I have known and despised since I can first remember sneezing and wheezing with allergies as a kid: Ragweed. I know it, I can smell it, I can pull it all out with no remorse. It's past its blooming time and the seeds have no doubt already been scattered to the four winds, but I want to pull out as much as I can find. Did I mention I hate ragweed? The ground is soft from recent rains, so the plants pull up easily and soon I have a pretty good pile going. There are also a few invasive Autumn Olive trees starting to sprout, so I yank out what i can find. And I'm a little worried about all the Partridge Pea, a native plant with pretty yellow blooms, which is threatening to take over large chunks of the Meadow. So I thin out a few plants here and there, hoping that the millions of seeds that have already fallen on the ground don't sprout in the spring. Ha. We'll see. I know that there are more invasives to be dealt with-- camphor weed, Queen Ann's Lace, and the still-green Bermuda grass continues to spread even after having been nuked with Roundup back in the spring. But when I stop focusing on the weeds, I see---- native wildflowers in bloom! Most striking today are the yellow goldenrods against the blue and white asters. Gone are the reds and oranges of summer. "Aster" means "star," and there's an interesting myth about why asters and goldenrod always bloom together. Do you know it? And I always feel bad for goldenrod because many people believe that it causes allergies, but in reality it is the ragweed pollen that is far more of an irritant. I remember looking at pollen grains from both plants under a microscope: goldenrod pollen is smooth; ragweed pollen, rough and jagged. Obviously more irritating to the mucous linings of your nose. I look closely at the Seaside Goldenrod blooms for signs of crab spiders and assassin bugs, but couldn't find any today. They are sneaky little critters that are so well-camouflaged and lie in wait for unsuspecting prey. So unlike the marauding shock-and-awe hawks and falcons that scream, "Death From Above!"  The Wild Meadow at Two Mile Beach, now a year old. Happy Birthday! Update: Wild Meadow at Two Mile 08/01/2010
 (Photo by author) American Copper butterflies (left and right) frame a Pearl Crescent (center) on blooming Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa), a New Jersey native plant, in the new Friends' Wild Meadow at the Two Mile Beach Visitor's Contact Station. I have been pressed into voluntary service once again to help out as a Beach Steward at Two Mile. Today I am stationed at the Visitor Contact Station, which gives me a chance to check out the latest condition of the Wild Meadow that we planted wayyyy back in the fall of '09. Almost a year has passed, and it's possible to make some evaluations and judgments about how it's doing and what still needs to be done. Meadows are "works in progress," according to all the literature I've read, and it's apparently easy to get frustrated in the first few years. I see good things, and I see bad things. Standing back and looking at the Big Picture, I see, frankly, someone's overgrown, weedy, unkempt and unruly front yard. It looks like a foreclosure house in need of a lawn mower. It looks worse than the lawns on Desperate Landscapes. But... I look more closely, knowing what the lot looked like last fall, Bermuda grass and other non-natives spreading everywhere, bare ground and rocks, construction debris, a mess. At least now the mess looks, shall we say, a bit more natural? So yes, there are weeds, but what is a weed? More importantly, what is the new balance of native vs. non-native? That was our long-term goal, of course. Replace the alien with the native. Create an ecosystem that is more like what the native insects, birds and other critters might consider more natural and better suited to their needs. In that respect I think we've already done pretty well. The non-native weeds we can deal with, although it might be a long process. There is plantain, which loves the crappy sandy rock-filled "soil." There is dock, loaded with seeds just waiting to drop and sprout a new generation of docklets. There are a few clumps Queen Ann's Lace, pretty but non-native. We didn't plant it, but it didn't have to travel far to get here (it grows quite healthily in the area on the other side of the pavers). There is wild lettuce gone to seed, as well as other plants that I can't readily identify but which I'm quite sure we don't want. Oh, and there is ragweed, a plant that I've become very familiar with in my struggles with allergies and asthma! I know ragweed. I hate ragweed. We need to pull out all ragweed before it goes to seed. The good news is that the "soil" here is so crappy that these weeds are quite easy to pull out by the roots. Roots can't go very far down here. SO I yank up as much ragweed as I can fit into the black plastic bag that I brought. It doesn't take long, and I only scratch the surface. I'm hoping that we can get the Tuesday morning garden group started soon before all this stuff goes to seed. But it's not all bad news. Most of the area is now covered in a nice variety of warm-season grasses, some red, some green, some brown, the seeds of which were donated by the USDA and planted by Brad, Barry, Joe and I last October. I don't know all of them, but together they make a nice, meadow-y effect, and will look even better when the cold weather turns them all to a golden brown. And there are blooming native flowers. Purple Ironweed; swamp milkweed; native hibiscus; orange butterfly weed; asters just now beginning to bloom; a few patches of mountain mint; partridge pea (a native, but I'm worried that it is so aggressive that it might become a problem if we can't control it somehow); seaside goldenrod, looking healthy and ready to bloom in another month or so; other native goldenrod that I can't identify yet; a clump or two of yarrow; some black-eyed susans. And along with all these native flowers I see... native critters enjoying them! A gray catbird has apparently made a nest under the ramp, flying in and out through the lattice holes, feeding on insects in our meadow. Butterflies on every plant. Yellow butterflies, black butterflies, white butterflies, blue butterflies. I start a list. Great Spangled Fritillaries. Gray Hairstreaks. Pearl Crescents. Lovely butterflies with lovely names! My list is getting longer. Pollinators everywhere. Jewel-like leafhoppers on the mountain mint; bumblebees and honey bees and wasps and flies and beetles, all enjoying the fruits of our labors. And dragonflies, Saltmarsh Dragonlets, small delicate little predators working the field. I see something darting through the grass at my feet. A baby bunny. He seems quite happy to have all this vegetation to hide him from hawks and coyotes. You're welcome, our pleasure. Just don't eat too much of the good stuff, OK? Here's my list for the day. No birds on my list today, too much other stuff going on! BUTTERFLIES; -sliver spotted skipper -sachem -gray hairstreak -great spangled fritillary -pearl crescent -spicebush swallowtail -buckeye -American copper -American lady -cabbage white -clouded sulphur -tiger swallowtail  Photo by author. Mountain Mint in bloom attracts a Pearl Crescent butterfly and many other pollinators. The New, Improved Indian Trail Swamp 05/17/2010
 Indigo Bunting (Photo: USFWS) 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 This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. Love in a Time of War 04/27/2010
 Merlin (photo by Terry Sohl) 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. |  Birds &
|
RSS Feed