Cape May Part Two - It's All About the Birds

Flocks of tree swallows swirl over the sand

This year Cape May had the largest autumn migration fall-out in over 10 years. Driving to early morning field trips, I had to drive 10 miles an hour to avoid running over the dozens of birds on every paved surface - even the middle of the street. I had to stop the car at one intersection to pick up an exhausted sparrow who didn't move when my car approached and put him on the side of the road where he would be safer. The sky and trees were dripping with birds. Thousands of robins, yellow-rumps and sparrows, tree swallows (along with a lifer cave swallow), finches and kinglets flew through the night and landed in Cape May to rest and feed before continuing migration. Dozens of raptors wheeled through the sky at any given moment.


The weekend provided two life birds for me (cave swallow and lesser black backed gull) and almost 100 species total. But it was the sheer numbers that were breathtaking. I have only been birding for six years, but this was a spectacle unlike anything I had seen and had only read about. I felt blessed to be able to witness it.


My picture taking ability is limited to large birds perched close, so all the bird pictures I have are of mute swans. The most exciting birds I saw were the raptors - dozens of sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper's hawks perched on telephone wires and calling to each other, then flying down to the ground only yards away where I could get good looks at their patrician profiles. An osprey, immature and mature bald eagles, both turkey and black vultures, dozens of harriers (where I learned to identify the juveniles by their gorgeous buffy rufous bellies), red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons (!!!), broad wing hawks and dozens of kestrels were highlights of the weekend. There is no place like Cape May for raptor watching.

Morning flight over the hawk watch platform at Cape May Point Park
(click to enlarge and view the spectacle of hundreds of birds in flight)

One of the more unusual birds I saw close up was the woodcock blown in from over the ocean and perched under a staircase across the street from the Grand Hotel. It was obviously exhausted and stressed, so we stayed a respectable distance and, thanks to Jim from Kowa Optics who showed us the location and lent us his scope to observe, I got looks at a forest bird who flys mostly at dusk at Cape May in broad daylight!

Getting great looks at kinglets, thrushes, sparrows, ducks and shorebirds like oystercatcher, dunlin, black bellied plover, sanderling, purple sandpiper, ruddy turnstone (one of my favorite shorebirds), woodpeckers, herons, egrets and terns made for an educational as well as exciting weekend. I was able to clearly see size difference in the cackling goose at the tail end of the V formation of Canada geese. I learned to differentiate the white scapular outline on mallard duck wings and see the color and size difference of lesser black backed gulls vs. great black backed gulls.

I couldn't have asked for a more exciting weekend - birds and great friends.

One Way to Kill a House Sparrow

I found this dead sparrow hanging from the feeder in the backyard. Obviously it got it's head stuck while digging for seed. You can see the seed stuck to it's face once I removed the corpse from the feeder. What a way to go. I have found four dead sparrows in my backyard this year. Two under a hedge. One in this feeder and one with it's head stuck in the holes of ornamental brick that surrounds the base of my other feeders. House sparrows are annoying, aggressive and invasive. I am not shedding any tears over these dead sparrows, but cleaning up the corpses is kind of disgusting - especially when you have to detangle broken necks from the tiny holes in a feeder. Yuck.

Deep cleansing breath. I spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the autumn sunshine and built a fire in the backyard pit. Good book, crackling flames, sunshine, golden and crimson leaves wafting slowly out of the trees, the smell of wood smoke. Life is good.

Autumn Birding

With an unexpectedly free Sunday morning, I decided to use my Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve membership for only the second time in 2010 and take a birding jaunt on a sunny October day. With the temperatures in the mid-70s yesterday, I was unprepared for the very chilly temps in the mid 30s this morning, so I did not bring gloves or dress in enough layers. Walking briskly through the woods to keep my core temperature above freezing, I listened to squirrels rooting around in the dry leaves and woodpeckers banging on the trees. Crows and blue jays provided the only bird noise for quite a while. It was too cold to stand still and look for warblers. As soon as the sun came up, tufted titmice and chickadees added their voices to the din, but I was still the only human in the entire preserve. I was going to die of hypothermia all alone and no one would find my frozen body for hours.

Even the Bowman Hill cactus were shivering.

Walking across the bridge over Pidcock Creek, I stopped to scan the trees hoping for something warbler-ish. I was rewarded with red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatch and golden-crowned kinglets. Butter butts (yellow-rumped warbler), flocks of goldfinches (almost as many as an irruption - if they were the breed that irrupts) and wood thrush made for a rewarding morning and took the chill off. Red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers were in abundance. Fly over blue herons, turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks rounded out the day.

Two and a half hours later, fingers numb with cold, nose running and ears tingling, I packed it in for a cup of hot coffee and the Sunday New York Times at the local diner.

Log cabin at the Preserve

I haven't been spending enough time birding lately, but am looking forward to the Cape May Autumn Migration Festival at the end of October. Not only will I get to bird at the height of migration in the migration capital of North America, but I will see my blogging friends (Susan, Laura and Delia) as well as pay my respects to the newly hired president of the American Birding Association and friend, Jeff Gordon. I plan on bowing in supplication and calling him "Your Highness" just to watch him blush. Seriously, it will be a wonderful way to spend my 46th birthday (Sunday October 31st) - with friends and with birds. What more can a birder ask for??

Wooded (and chilly) path through the Preserve