Still, any time birding is a bonus and I did have the opportunity to get out more than a few times. Here’s a look back at 2009:

Birding

Total Species (overall): 421 species
Total Species (2009): 209
New Species (2009): 76

New Jersey

Total Species (overall): 225 species
Total Species (2009): 145
New Species (2009): 11

Highlights:

The year started off well, with 5 new species early in January, all relative rarities in my area: Green-tailed Towhee, Snowy Owl, Rough-Legged Hawk, Horned Grebe and White-winged Crossbill. Obviously, the Arizona trip was a major highlight – lots of new species (69, to be exact), great scenery and habitats, as well as a few lifebirds in the real sense – the Elegant Trogon, Flame-colored Tanager and White-eared Hummingbird. Seeing the Trogons was an amazing thing – especially since I got to see them mating, as well.

After a slow spring and summer with little birding, I was able to end the year on a high note with 2 more addition to the lifelist (Ivory Gull and Eurasian Wigeon), plus a new state bird (Spotted Towhee).

Overall, a slow year of birding – not many times out and not a whole lot of new birds outside of Arizona – but I’m still happy with what I got to do. Not sure how much I’ll get out in 2010 – but my goal is to top 450 species, but that will probably require a few day trips or some extra travel to get. Not that I mind that!

Pictorial Highlights

As always, you can see my Best of 2009 set on Flickr.

I was guiding PhotoPatty and Al around Forsythe NWR when she suddenly points down into the water and says, "I think that’s a shark!". If I hadn’t seen it, I would never have thought I would see a shark (let alone 2, maybe 3) in the east pool of Forsythe NWR.

So, we started the morning the same way we had started them every morning, with a quick breakfast while watching the multitude of birds coming to the feeder outside our back door: orioles, grosbeaks and hummingbirds at the nectar and jelly feeders, quail, towhees and cardinals at the platform feeders and on the ground, and doves, pigeons and jays calling out in the trees.

We then set out for the trails past the Southwestern Research Station, including the Herb Martyr campground area. The book¹ told us about the views we’d see in addition to the birds, such as Winn Falls. Alas, with the drought, the falls were barely existent but the campground area did provide some excellent habitat and a little bit of real hiking (which we’d done sadly little of this far).

The beginning of the walk led us through some woods where we were quickly met by a group of small songbirds, including several ‘western’ flycatchers, kinglets, a Western Wood-Pewee* and a Cassin’s Vireo*. Then we headed down toward the creek and the dam that the book described. The dam wasn’t particularly impressive, but there was some beautiful terrain behind it. Shari decided to hang out by some pools down from the dam, while I went to explore a little bit past it. The terrain reminded me a lot of the times I spent around the White Clay Creek where I grew up even though the plants were completely different and I had to keep my eyes out for rattlesnakes here. I wandered about a half-mile up the creek, coming upon numerous lizards and a few butterflies that I never got a look at. I did, however, get to see an ‘Arizona’ Juvenal’s Skipper*, although precarious footing made my pictures less than satisfying.

Further up along the running stream (surprising in and of itself) were a small mixed flock of songbirds: Audubon’s warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets, Western Kingbirds and a bunch of other flycatchers. It was so peaceful sitting there in the fork of the stream that it was tough to get up to meet up with Shari. When I did, I was treated to a host of lizards: Gila Spotted Whiptail*, Striped Plateau Lizard* and Yarrow’s Spiny Lizard* all put on good shows for us.

The Windy Mounts

We decided to then head back up the mountain roads to the Rustler and Barfoot parks to see if we could get second looks at some of the species we missed the previous trip. But what we found was mostly WIND. There was a front coming through and that meant huge winds in all the mountain parks. At Rustler, a planned picnic ended up being in the car because there was too much grit in the air. At Barfoot, the trees were moving so much that even if there had been birds, they would have been nearly impossible to ID. The one highlight was when I was walking in a small wooded area and startled a large raptor which flew away with a rabbit sized meal in its claws. Could it have been a Golden Eagle? Maybe, but I only saw a flash of the huge brown bird and the talons holding its lunch.

The Onion Saddle/Pinery Road

From there, we started our trek to the Chiricahua National Monument using the back roads so we could look for some specialties which were known to be there, including the elusive (for me) Zone-tailed Hawk. Shari saw a couple of them, but I was always looking the other way and they would cross the ridges before I could get an ID. Overall, with the wind, the skies and rocks were fairly quiet, but were did have the thrill of seeing a Grey Fox cross the road in front of us.

Eventually, a series of less than stellar roads led us to the National Monument, and it was at the entrance that I FINALLY saw my lifer Zone-tailed Hawk*. So similar to a turkey vulture, once you have seen that trademark tail and how they fly, they aren’t to hard to tell apart. It wasn’t a great look but for 1 minute I just admired it soaring around us.

Chiricahua National Monument

I knew that I wanted to check the Chiricahua National Monument (pronounced “Cheer-ee-cow-hwa”) out early in the trip planning. There were some cool birds to be had there (potentially), but more so I was looking forward to taking some landscape pictures – something that I really don’t get to do here on the east coast. The park is part of the Coronado National Forest, but encapsulates a huge number of rock formations that have been formed by wind and water erosion over the centuries. From the beginning, it reminded me a lot of Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO, but at a much larger scale. Where Garden of the Gods was a large group of red rocks with a few formations throughout the park, Chiricahua National Monument was a vast landscape of other-worldly rock formations: pillars, spires, chimneys, balanced rocks and more. The sheer magnitude of the the formations was amazing, and we were only able to do about 1/3 of the park because of the conditions. Located at about 8,000′, the winds were gale-force at times, pushing us around and knocking Shari off of her feet at one point. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting.

We started up the road toward our first destination of Massai Point, which is at the very end of the long and winding drive. Our first stop along the road was to see the Organ Pipe Formation, a large collection of pillars rising up like the namesake. As an introduction to the park, they were a good one. From there we kept driving and stopping as a number of roadside formations caught our attention (Sea Captain, China Boy). Eventually, we made it to the far parking lot, where we hiked the Massai Nature Trail and the Ed Riggs Trail, seeing a cornucopia of examples of how Mother Nature does sand(stone) sculptures. The stone structures both near and far were just incredible. We were walking among stone formations that appeared to have been sculpted by alien hands to serve uses common and uncommon. At one of the main vistas, we were greeted not only by the sun, giant rock monoliths and a spectacular view of hundreds of other stoneworks, but of a pair of zone-tailed hawks, soaring level with our line of site – not a view I expect many people get of these cool raptors.

After hiking around there, we made a stop at Echo Point but the winds were getting even stronger and the blowing sand and dirt was making it less pleasant to be out of the car. We took in a few more vistas and then decided to head back down to ‘home’ for the evening. The monument was somewhat anti-climatic because of conditions, but I’m glad that we went. Some good sites for information on this monument:

• National Park Service – Chiricahua National Monument
• American Southwest.net – Chiricahua National Monument
• WikiTravel – Chiricahua National Monument

Our Last Night at Cave Creek Ranch

After the monument, we went home to unwind and start packing for our move to our next destination. Originally, we wanted to drive down Portal Road to get the sunset in the mountains, but because of the weather the light was pretty flat, so we decided to just go into Portal to have a last dinner instead. As usual, the food was good in the quaint little lodge and we talked about our day and what we could expect for the next leg of the trip. But we had a bonus when we got to talk to the owner of the Portal Lodge, Billy (we never got his last name). We’d seen him walking around the area every time we’d been there, mostly out in his shop in the back. Billy is the town fix-it man (although, arguably, everyone has some skills at repair in a place like this) and his repair shop seems to do everything from cars to power tools to carpentry to general maintenance. Billy himself looked like he was 50′s power car aficionado with an affection for Elvis – the type of guy that when you see him you try to figure out if it’s a facade or a style. I can tell you, it’s a style and the style befits the man – an Arizona homesteader with grit in his teeth and a heart of gold for his neighbors. Johnny Cash could write a song about this guy and make you relate to every word – and it would all be true.

The Lodge was getting close to closing when we met up with him at the counter, and decided to hit him up with some questions we had about the area: how many people lived around here, real estate, cost of drilling wells, etc.² He was happy to answer any and all questions, and that led to an hour-long conversation about a wide expanse of topics from immigration to being on the volunteer fire company that covers 500 square miles of territory – much of it on less-than-developed roads, where your only marker is the guy at the turn with a flashlight waving you in – to street racing down the empty roads to the school districts. He was an incredibly interesting guy, and I think that talking to him was one of the highlights of the first half of our trip. I could easily see sitting down with him on a log and drinking a beer and shooting the shit. Not that everyone we met wasn’t extremely nice, but Billy was an interesting soul, too.

But eventually, they wanted to close up so we packed it in and headed back to the Cave Creek Ranch. After showering, we prepped our stuff so that we could get out of the area quickly and make our way to the Santa Ritas, where we would spend the second half of the trip. We then went to bed to get some much needed sleep. Except that I couldn’t sleep right away – I kept hearing some noise out the window that sounded like a bunch of chewing. I thought it might be the deer, but I couldn’t see well enough through the screen to be sure. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I grabbed Shari’s video light to go out and find out what all of the racket was about. Coming around the corner, I ended up getting quite a surprise as I found myself in front of a small pack (herd?) of javelina enjoying the leavings of corn and seed on the ground. They looked up at me and kept the young ones in the middle, but I didn’t make any fast moves and they figured I was harmless and went back to eating. Not wanting to disturb them further, I turned around and walked back to bed.

⊃¹ A Birder’s Guide to Southeastern Arizona — Rick Taylor
⊃² To be honest, after spending time at the Cave Creek Ranch, Shari and I half-joked about how it would be very cool to open our own birding lodge in a place like the Portal area. I think it would be AWESOME, although I don’t have any illusions about how tough it must be to maintain a business like that in an area as remote as it is.

Sighting List

Birds

Trip Stats (Species/New): Day: 20 / 2 | Trip: 98 / 55

What we hadn’t counted on, though was another frequent visitor at Forsythe – greenheads. These little biting buggers were everywhere, and very intent on making our lives miserable. It was a shame, too, because there was quite a bit going on at Forsythe, but it was just too painful (even with bug spray on) to stop for anything but the most interesting things.

The marshes were full of birds, if not necessarily the shorebirds we were looking for. We had hoped to see the reported American Avocets, but they were nowhere to be seen, possibly consumed by the legions of greenheads. But herons and egrets abounded, as did Forster’s terns who were snapping up fish like they would never see sushi again. Similarly, snowy and great egrets were joined by a number of Black-crowned Night-Herons, both adult and immature, throughout the wildlife drive.

There were many more birds out there – Black Skimmers, American Oystercatchers, Glossy Ibis plus the normal cadre of gulls and terns, ducks and geese. No raptors other than the Osprey and their broods, and the other shorebirds were mostly relegated to a few small flocks of Semi-palmated Sandpipers, a pair of Short-billed Dowitchers and a few willets. But all of them were mostly out of our grasp because of the darn flies.

There were a bunch of odonates and butterflies around, but it wasn’t worth getting out to track them down. I did get to see a Salt Marsh Skipper from close range while hiding in the car’s interior while Shari got some pictures of the snowy egret at the top of this post. But that was as brave as I got during the trip.

After only a half-hour or so, we decided that short of a bald eagle doing a samba across the road, it just wasn’t worth the biting pests, and decided to high-tail it out of there. However, I had to pause as I passed the fields just past Jen’s Trail – there, in the fading sunlight were thousands of Halloween pennants. It seemed that there was one on every other stem of grass, as far as I could see. It was amazing how many there were, all perched and waiting for some unknown queue.

As we sailed through the bluebird area, we heard the call of a bobwhite in the distance, saw some kingbirds and some other warbler-type birds, but weren’t willing to risk blood loss to get better looks. Still, even this downer at the end of the day wasn’t enough to change the fact that we had a good time overall.

Trip List

Birds: Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Glossy Ibis, Forster’s Tern, Black Skimmer, American Oystercatcher, Great Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Laughing Gull, Eastern Kingbird, Common Yellowthroat, Osprey, Purple Martin, Northern Mockingbird, American Goldfinch, Canada Goose, Red-winged Blackbird, Mallards, House Finch, House Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Seaside Sparrow

Butterflies: Common Buckeye, Cabbage White, Orange Sulphur (+ other sulphur sp.), Monarch, Viceroy, Black Swallowtail

Dragonflies: Halloween Pennant, Needham’s Skimmer, Black Saddlebags

The Meadows

But it was a fun trip, even if we missed the early-morning light. We were going for birds, butterflies and odonata, and we found all 3. We started at Cape May Meadows, getting there in the early daylight, quickly finding a multitude of damselflies all over the grasses. Common Buckeyes were everywhere, even outnumbering the cabbage whites that flittered about.

The birds were a bit more sparse than we had expected. A few geese, mallards and swans but none of the shorebirds we were hoping for. In the brush, numerous common yellowthroats sang their songs … “witchety-witchety-witchety-witch!”, but were more often heard than seen. We kept walking, reaching the beach, which revealed a few nesting least terns (none of which seemed particularly happy to see us. There was also a single piping plover, but no chicks anywhere. So back to the marshes we went.

There, we ran into odonata heaven – hundreds of damselflies and dragonflies all over the place. The damselflies seeemed pretty intent on mating for as long as possible, and most of the dragonflies were hovering over them, defending their own territories. Common green darners, wandering and spot-winged gliders and black saddlebags were pretty common over the water by the observation tower. Familiar bluets and Rambur’s forktails were the most common damsels, with citrine forktails also plentiful.

Walking toward the parking lot, we encountered a bonanza of dragons: Calico & Halloween pennants numbered in the dozens, as were Needham’s skimmers. Other species flittered in and out, usually too quickly to identify before they were gone back into the high grasses and wildflowers.

Cape May Point

Making the obligatory bathroom stop, we also paused to watch the many purple martins tending to their young, a few wayward house sparrows desegregating the martin houses for their own needs. After a short visit with the martins – the light was just a bit too harsh for good pictures of these dark birds’ ebony-violet iridescence against the gleaming white faux gourds – we moved to the other side of the parking lot and the hawk watch overlook. Things there were relatively quiet, though – nothing more than a few herons and lots of geese in the pond, so we decided to walk the boardwalk trails of the park for more interesting things to photograph.

The park was full of life – most of it with 4 wings and six legs. Sprites of one sort or another – I never got a good shot of one – joined familiar bluets, Rambur’s forktails and a multitude of different dragonfly species throughout the length of the short trail. But the most impressive site of all were the absolutely huge swamp darners, which were 4″ long if they were an inch. I’m prone to hyperbole at times, but there is no exaggerating the huge size of these dragons – they literally dwarfed the far less common Common Green Darners flying nearby. We even had a few take an interest in us, hovering around us with their own intense curiosity, and gave us good enough close-up looks to know that they were nearly the size of my hand (and I have big hands — which, as any person would tell you, means that I … wear big gloves). Beautiful dragons to see, they were even more impressive because there were an easy dozen of them mixed in with a swarm of spot-winged gliders hunting the grassy parts of the marsh.

Closer to the water, black and red saddlebags hunted the low waters, competing with Needham’s and Painted skimmers amongst the reeds. Common green darners flew in and out of them, all but oblivious to their protests over an unseen territorial line, while great blue skimmers and blue dashers slid in under the radar for quick meals as they were distracted. In the distance a multitude of swans competed in a late round of faux-courtship maneuvers, while the single green heron flew over the pond to destinations unknown.

Anniversary Picnic

After our little boardwalk trek, we decided that it was time to sit and have some lunch. We had decided to do a romantic finger-food lunch – prosciutto and sharp provolone cheese, honeydew, hummus and stuffed grape leaves, bruschetta and rosemary bread, tabouli and different fruits. It turned out to be just perfect – a mixture of cool and warm, salty and sweet, all blending perfectly to whet our appetite without being too filling or hard to manage sitting at a picnic table in the park. It was a really nice time, just sitting there talking, eating and looking around at whatever wildlife came our way. We didn’t rush, we just ate and enjoyed. When we were done both, we decided to head over to Higbee’s Beach for the next part of our trip.

Higbee’s Beach

Last year, Higbee Beach proved to be a great place to visit in both June and July. It was hot both times, but there were birds, butterflies and dragonflies galore to see and photograph. This time … um, not so much. I got to see a few good dragonflies in the 20 minutes we were there, but whether it was the heat or just a bad year there, the creatures were not nearly out in the same numbers as our previous visit.

One interesting note was one of the few butterflies I saw (in general, butterfly numbers were way down this year). I took a shot of an admiral on a butterfly bush, and just assumed it was a red admiral without giving it too much thought. It wasn’t until after I posted it to Flickr that someone corrected my ID. It turns out that this was not a red admiral but a Painted Lady, a common butterfly that I had somehow never been able to find. Here I had gotten a decent shot of one and hadn’t realized it. Check up at least ONE lifelist entry!

But after a short trip to Higbee, we wandered around a bit – stopping at the Cape May Bird Observatory and several other ‘hot spots’ around town – with little to show for it before heading back to the Meadows for round II – and I’m glad that we did.

Back to the Meadows

Our second visit of the day to Cape May Meadows (now officially called the “Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge) was even more fruitful than our earlier morning trip. The dragons were out in force, and a greater number of birds were out enjoying the nice weather – Forsters and common terns, laughing gulls by the dozens and at least 17 swans (yes, 17). But as exciting as nearly a score of swans was, we decided to take another stab at the beach, even though the sun was pretty high – Shari had never seen a piping plover chick and we wanted to give her the chance.

At first, it looked like we were going to be disappointed. Not only were the chicks nowhere to be seen, but the adults were missing, too. A couple of least terns were flying nearby but seemed ignorant or unimpressed by our presence. So, we started walking back up the path to the marshes when we saw them. 2 adults and 2 chicks who practically ran across our feet. They were literally less than a meter from us, crossing the walking path. Immediately the cameras came up and we tried to get some shots.

The hot sand was making focusing difficult even at the short distances as the heat created a moire-like effect just above the top of the beach – unfortunately, the exact place that these little plovers and their even smaller chicks were taking up. We watched them get to a cautious distance, pipping their way across the hot sand away from us and then waiting to see what we’d do – which is sit down and try not to be threatening.

It seemed to work for the most part – that is, until the chicks’ curiosity got the better of their intelligence and they decided to come closer for a better look. That seemed to set the parents’ warning radar off and a new round of pips and squeaks commenced. For our part, we stayed still and tried to NOT disturb them – I even laid in the sand to create a smaller profile, but the parents were not buying it, trying to corral their young ones away from that threatening spectre of photography, Shari.

We watched as the chicks came closer and closer, parents trying to dissuade their insanity, and taking the pictures we could. Once again they chicks came within an arms length of us, only to run away in a game of chicken. The whole episode lasted for a good 5 minutes before we decided that the chicks and their parents had probably had enough excitement and decided to move on. But even that wasn’t easy, as the chicks decided that was the precise time they wanted to cross ‘the road’ right in front of us. We couldn’t win for losing! But it was an amazing experience for both Shari and I to see these little puffballs making their way in the harsh environment that is the Jersey shore.

But the excitement wasn’t over yet. As we crested the dune, I spied a dragonfly hovering next to the hedgerow. I figured out that it was a spot-winged glider breaking the first of the two of the absolute rules I had revealed to Shari only hours earlier – that they never stay still long enough for a picture. But this one was doing more than that – he hovered in place for at least 5 minutes (or at least within a few inches of the same spot). We took over 100 pictures each, and managed to get some pretty exciting flight shots. It turns out (after reviewing my pictures from the day), that I also managed to get that other perennially-tough to photograph species, the wandering glider, as well, so I had a good day of dragonfly photography.

Normally, Shari isn’t as into the dragonflies, but this courteous specimen really got her attention – more than just being a cool dragon, it allowed her to test out the settings on her D3 and try a variety of combinations of shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and other settings. The result was a pretty cool shot of a very cool dragonfly (see more of Shari’s pictures, too). But our day wasn’t over – we still had to break Rule #2 about the gliders – that they never land for a picture. Luckily, that only took a few minutes more.

As we came to the pond by the observation tower, the damsels and dragons were still plentiful and active. But I spied one in particular hanging on a small reed by the edge of the shore. I swooped in to get a shot of this cool dragon, thinking it was a baskettail of some sort. It wasn’t until I got home later that I realized it was yet another spot-winged glider … perched!!

After getting way too many shots of this dragonfly, we decided it was time to move on … we wanted some shorebirds, so we figured that Forsythe NWR would be a great place to try. We were right – and wrong – as we would soon find out…

Trip List

Birds: Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Glossy Ibis, Killdeer, Piping Plover, Least Tern, Common Tern, Forster’s Tern, Black Skimmer, American Oystercatcher, Great Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Laughing Gull, Gray Catbird, Eastern Kingbird, House Wren, Caroline Wren, Prairie Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Red-tailed Hawk, Osprey, Turkey Vulture, Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Tree Swallow, Northern Cardinal, Northern Flicker, Northern Mockingbird, American Goldfinch, Canada Goose, Mute Swan, Blue Jay, American Robin, Red-winged Blackbird, American Crow, Mourning & Rock Dove, Mallards, Starling, House Finch, House Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Seaside Sparrow

Butterflies: Common Buckeye, Cabbage White, Orange Sulphur (+ other sulphur sp.), Monarch, Black Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail, Pearl Crescent, Eastern Tailed-Blue, Painted Lady (new)

Odonata: Damselflies: Citrine Fortail, Eastern Forktail, Rambur’s Forktail, Fragile Forktail, Familiar Bluet
Dragonflies: Blue Dasher, Common Green Darner, Swamp Darner, Eastern Amberwing, Eastern Pondhawk, Calico Pennant, Four-spotted Pennant, Halloween Pennant, Great Blue Skimmer, Needham’s Skimmer, Painted Skimmer, Spot-winged Glider, Wandering Glider, Black Saddlebags, Red Saddlebags, Meadowhawk sp.

You see, in June through August around here, there is a relative paucity of birds to find and photograph. Those that are around tend to be well-hidden in the trees, or of the ‘common’ type that aren’t as much to find. So, a couple of years ago Shari and I started doing butterflies and dragonflies to fill in that space. And it’s been fun – I really loved my hikes around Valley Forge National Park two summers ago, and miss those almost daily excursions. This year, the butterflies have been less plentiful, and the dragonflies (and damselflies) are just starting to get some numbers going.

My favorite haunt so far for odonata (that is, members of the order Odonota, which includes dragonflies (infraorder: Anisoptera) and damselflies (suborder: Zygoptera)) has been Wallworth Pond in Haddonfield. It really starts picking up this time of year, and I’m becoming more and more aware of the diversity of creatures here at this small pond. So far this year I’ve found:

• Dragonflies: Common whitetail, beaverpond baskettail, common baskettail, eastern pondhawk, unicorn clubtail, blue dasher, slaty skimmer
• Damselflies: Orange bluet, stream bluet, familiar bluet, blackwater bluet, citrine forktail, fragile forktail, eastern forktail, blue-fronted dancer, blue-ringed dancer

Not too bad for one place. Palmyra Cove has also been a nice location although it hasn’t had as many dragons as it did last year, probably mostly due to the fact that the two large retention ponds at the front of the park have been mostly dry this year (last year they were true ponds across their width). It’s still been good, though, as my last trip was really full of a variety of odonata including many of the same ones above plus common green darner, widow skimmer, black saddlebags and spot-winged gliders.

But this weekend will hopefully be the coup de grace: we’re heading down to Cape May and there has always been a bounty of different odonates (and good birds) there. We’re planning on hitting Higbee Beach, Cape May State Park, Cape May Meadows, Bellevue State Forest and anywhere else that catches our fancy. Hopefully I’ll get a lot of good photo opportunities, although I have a feeling we might be playfully arguing over who gets that awesome Nikon 105mm f/2.8 (have I mentioned that I love that lens?

But that’s not for a couple of days – and I need to actually get to work. So, until then, here are some more parting shots. [ note: these all link back to Flickr instead of a lighbox. ]

Wallworth Pond is usually not a great birding spot – sure there are geese, mallards, barn swallows and the occasional Baltimore oriole or two. But the big draw here are the bugs – particularly the dragon- and damselflies. It’s not a huge pond but it has a healthy number of lily pads, which in turn seem to bring a good number of dragonflies. Native plants along the shore also provide habitat for a number of other bug species.

Barn Swallow

When I first got out of the car, I was greeted by a bunch of barn swallows greeted me – although I hadn’t expected most of them to be on the ground. I guess that’s where the young go when they want to be fed.

Feeeeed me.

But eventually, I got bored of the swallows and started looking for my real quarry – the bugs. At first, it appeared that I might be disappointed – I couldn’t find any, no matter where I looked. But then, they started to emerge. It started with one that was flying back and forth, denying me a picture and any chance of ID. Then came a common whitetail, followed by a bunch of mating damselflies (which I later ID’d as a collection of orange bluets. But after a time in the bad light, I went to the other side of the pond. Jackpot.

Female Blackwater Bluet

It was here that I started seeing a ton of stuff – four-lined plant bugs, broadheaded sharpshooters, Dogwood Calligrapha beetle and any number of other small beetles and bugs. And there were a lot of damselflies in the vegetation in one particular spot. They were less than helpful about letting me get a shot of them, so I know that I missed a few, but I saw a bunch of eastern forktails, fragile forktails and my first confirmed pictures of blackwater bluets. I’d seen them before but never had a good shot of one.

Female Blackwater Bluet 2

But the highlight of the night – aside from the hundreds of damselflies out – was my third baskettail species of the year, a male Beaverpond baskettail. It was a great dragonfly to see, with brilliant green eyes (see the picture below), but a real pain to get a picture of. I’m 99% sure that’s what I was seeing on the other side of the pond, but I don’t remember the green eyes standing out as much as they did this time.

Beaverpond Baskettail patrolling

All in all, a good day to end a long week – I got to see and get some good pictures of several species of odonata, and added 1 species of dragonfly to my lifelist. The Odes are back!

Life ain’t always pretty. While we were driving around Forsythe NWR last weekend, we saw a lot of cool things, enjoyed some sun, smelled some god-awful stuff (“It smells like dead feet” I said, once; later I followed that up with “It smells like rancid toe cheese”. Disgusting, but you know exactly what I mean, don’t you?), and saw some interesting things. One of them was a bit of nature at work in the form of one of the preserves top garbage collectors – the gulls.

We caught this great black-backed gull playing with something in the water, and I quickly realized that it was a bird. Great black-backed gulls are large enough – and mean enough – that they can not only catch their own fish and molluscs, but they will prey on the chicks and even weakened adult shorebirds. And they’ll never turn down a good carrion snack if presented to them. So, we watched in fascination as this young gull dragged this blob around in the water, trying to get an angle to pick it apart and eat it. It eventually gave us a good enough look to figure out that it was a dead bird, one that had obviously been in the water for a while.

It took me a few more days and this message from bovinacowboy to make me realize that it was a clapper rail:

“Sadly I did see a large kill of Clapper Rails that I reported. Here’s the e-mail I rec’d from the biologist at the refuge:

Hi Bill,

Thank you for the information. We assessed the damage to the Wildlife Drive on Tuesday, May 13. Approximately 25 dead Clapper Rails (Rallus longirostris) were found dead along the north dike of the west pool. These birds are very vulnerable in a nor’easter.

Please call if you have further questions.

Thank you,
Kevin
*****************
Kevin Holcomb
Wildlife Biologist“

Having been pretty water-logged, it was pretty gooey and gross but the gulls are part of nature’s recycling system and this one spent quite a while trying to get a meal – at one point even trying to swallow the rail whole (unsuccessfully). I guess when viewing nature, you have to take the good, take the bad, and there you have – the facts of life. (sorry, couldn’t resist)

« See Mutual of Brigantine’s Wild Kingdom on Flickr »

Monarchs

The monarch butterfly is the best-known and recognized butterfly in North America – not only is it present through much of the country, but it’s bright coloration and large numbers make it a common resident where it is found. It is also perhaps one of the most well-studied butterflies, as scientists have studied their migration from central Mexico to the U.S. intently. Additionally, many children’s first experiences in school with butterflies involve the monarch because of the ease of raising the caterpillars through their development into adults.

Monarchs are easily recognizable based on their large size, vibrant orange-black and yellow coloration and their commonness, particularly around their major foodplant: milkweed. They are primarily orange on the dorsal side, with orange or yellow with heavy black barring throughout the wings. Their bodies are black with white spotting along its length. Males and females are very similar but there is a distinctive difference between them – males have two small ‘scent patches’ at the center of the hind wings. Below, you can see pictures of a male on the left and a female on the right.

Viceroys

The butterfly most commonly confused with the monarch is the Viceroy (Limenitis archippus), a mimic that is in a separate genus. Smaller than the monarch (2.75″/7.5cm average vs. the monarch’s 4.25″/10cm average), they are more easily distinguished by a black line along the mid-point of the hindwings. They also have a short row of white spots along the marginal band of the hindwing.

Interestingly, viceroys are excellent mimics that can look strikingly different based on their region and what other species are in the area. It has been noted that in the deep south, where monarchs are less common, viceroys tend to appear more similar to queen butterflies; in the American southwest, they mimic the more common Soldier butterflies more often than monarchs.

Queens and Soldiers

Queen and Soldier butterflies are related to monarchs but are rarely seen in the NJ-DE-PA area. From a dorsal view, they are easily distinguished from monarchs by the darker, consistent color. The ventral side, however, can be very similar to monarchs, particularly since they are similar in size. However, queens have more spotting within the main part of the wing (monarchs only have spots along the black bands on the edge) but have no veins in the forewing. See below for some pictures kindly ‘donated’ by Graham Toal and Anne Toal:

Soldiers are more similar to the queens, but are darker, have black veins in both the forewing and hindwing and squarish white spots along the midline of the hind wing. They are also rarer in the U.S., occurring primarily in the more southern ranges of the country, especially compared to the wider range of the queen.

For More Information

Here are some great resources for IDing butterflies in the NJ-MD-DE area (and country at large).

• Butterflies through Binoculars – The East by Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg. An indispensable guide to butterflies in the eastern U.S.
• Butterflies and Moths of North America Maps. The official butterfly site, as it were, with state checklists of butterflies.
• Bugguide.net. A great site for information on all types of insects (and related bugs, such as spiders) in North America.
• Pictures of Monarchs and Viceroys on Flickr
• Hard to ID Species Series Home

I went out looking for migrant birds Saturday – because I just needed to get out of the house and away from work, although the weather wasn’t helping much (overcast and spritzing). But I did get to see some cool birds at Palmyra Cove, including a lifelist worm-eating warbler. Other highlights included my first decent shots of male and female eastern towhees, a bald eagle soaring overhead and a couple nice looks at a scarlet tanager (1st of year – CHECK).

And at the end of my hike, I got to enjoy a great view of a perfectly-formed (and probably newly hatched) Eastern Tailed-Blue. I think I took 100 pictures of this little guy hoping to get the perfect pose.

Trip List

* – lifelist, ^ – first of year

Many Chickadee, titmouse, cardinal, American robins, red-winged blackbirds, white-throated sparrows and goldfinches
• 4 Common Yellowthroat
• 1 Worm-eating Warbler *
• 25+ Yellow warblers (including numerous groups playing vigorous games of ‘tag’) ^
• 1 Yellow-rumped warbler
• 1 Palm Warbler
• 1 American redstart ^
• 10+ blue-gray gnatcatchers (including 2 with a nest)
• 1 White-eyed vireo
• 2 Carolina wren
• 2 House wren
• 1 Marsh wren
• 12+ Eastern towhee
• 1 Bald Eagle (3rd year juvenile flyover)
• 1 Scarlet Tanager ^
• 1 Orchard Oriole ^
• 12+ Red-bellied woodpecker
• 4 Downy woodpecker
• 1 Hairy woodpeckers
• 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch
• 1 American Crow
• 8 Canada Goose (incl. 2 nests)
• 2 Mallard
• 3 Blue-winged Teal (in the dredge pool) ^
• 25+ tree swallows
• 4 Nothern Rough-winged Swallows ^
• 2 Hermit Thrush ^
• 1 Catbird ^
• 4 Great Blue Heron (all flyovers)
• 2 Blue Jay
• 3 Song sparrow
• 1 Swamp sparrow
• 5 field sparrow
• 2 house sparrow
• 1 Brown-headed cowbird ^
• 1 Starling
• Rock Dove
• Mourning Dove
• Ring-billed Gull (flyover)