My travel agent found us the sweetest lodging...a condo overlooking a marsh (complete with smell of decaying vegatation). Mornings were especially fabulous, with fallouts rummaging the phragmites right below the back deck.
Ever seen a yellow-rumped warbler from above? I hadn't.
Kathi was good enough to point out a lifer for me...a juvenile black-crowned night heron:
The Saturday morning banding demo produced a very angry male Cooper's Hawk:
...being held by a fellow blogger:
That's John from A DC Birding Blog. A very quiet but well-spoken guy. I really pay attention to banding demos and other people discussing raptors. I might pick up some new info.
On the eco-boat trip, I got more lifers:
Brant. A very cute little sea goose. They were hard to miss....like only about 100 of them floating on their own raft of goose-ness.
Fish crow...another lifer.
This one's for my father-in-law, Swami, because he seems to have no idea what a loon looks like:
A common loon. Not a lifer, but the best look I have had yet. Every time I look at this photo, I think, "...and a one...and a two..."
A sight you don't see every day....a peregrine falcon sitting on an osprey nest:
That was a highlight of the boat trip...then we got more PEFA:
Two of them sitting on a water tower.
I had been bitching and whining about "I wanna see oystercatchers!" at the bar the night before, and Beth-The-Lurker (Hi, Beth! Now you have to comment!) said I should see some on the boat trip.
We didn't see one....we saw two dozen.
A weirdly fascinating bird. A huge straight reddish-orange bill and crazy yellow/orange eyes. Click HERE for a good view of one.
All in all, I got 66 bird species at Cape May with five lifers:
American Oystercatcher
Black-crowned Night Heron
American Black-bellied Plover
Brant
Fish Crow
Not bad for only birding about 20 percent of the trip.
: )
Tomorrow, a post about my oldest child and her seventh birthday!
10 comments:
You. You. You. You got a Fish Crow? Where is the picture? Where? You got microscope pictures of dots that claim to be PFs but now Fish Crow? You wound me.
:D
Liza:
I'm so sorry....I do have a pic of the fish crow, but it's horrible. But I added it to the post......just for YOU.
:)
Wow Susan, you saw some cool birds! I love the loon shot!
Congrats, Susan! All would be lifers for me except for the Fish Crow. I saw one swipe a toad off the pond once!
What great fun.
No, no, Susan, you've got the accent all wrong. It's: "...and a ONE-ah.. and a TWO-ah"!
Sorry, I'm still laughing over the Guido video. "How YOU doin?"
Good to see proof that you ladies really did do some birding while in NJ! Sounds like you had quite a weekend of it! :)
Hi Susan: Glad you got the oystercatchers. I got five lifers on the trip, too - it was a good year. Found my KatDoc buckeye at the bottom of my pocketbook this morning and got the giggles remembering what you did with yours. People at the CVS store were looking at me funny!
PEFAs? That's a new one on me. We have a PEFA or two who buzz through our yard. There is a nesting pair in nearby Harrisburg, where they have a nest on the Rachel Carson building (which houses our state dpt. of the environment). How cool is that?
We have lots of loons at our lake cabin. I love these ducks, they are amazing. The sounds they make (especially in the middle of the night) are so eerily beautiful and mournful at the same time.
Nice butterbutt pic!
Great pictures Susan. Looks like you had beautiful weather all weekend. I would love to see an oystercatcher some day too.
Post a Comment