It looks like migration is still lagging at Palmyra Cove, but it was still a beautiful morning to get out on Saturday. The ponds are all very full around the park, which will hopefully translate into lots of odonata later this summer. There’s a few species out already but the larger group is yet to come. Continue reading
Another year has passed and I get to look back at what I have done throughout the year. In this case, I get to see what I did and enjoyed when looking at birds (and butterflies & dragonflies). It was a slower year for me – I got out a lot less than I had in the past, and was able to enjoy many fewer walks and hikes to search out the peace I get when I’m birding. In the past, even going to nearby Palmyra Cove a dozen times a year and walking the familiar paths after work or on a Saturday morning was a joy – but one that seemed to escape me all too often this busy year. On the other hand, I had the amazing experience of birding in Arizona in April & May – something I would love to repeat someday soon. Continue reading
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to write anything, mostly due to work but in part due to simply being to tired. But this weekend I had a chance to recover a bit, do some fun stuff and be lazy without the guilt.
Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be for finishing up the bathroom: put in the tile, seal it, install the chair rail and do all of the other finishing work. Unfortunately, the drywall guy we hired did a piss-poor job and the walls were so uneven that we have to tear them out and redo them. At least he was smart enough to give us some money back.
But the good news was that it gave us some more time to get other stuff done: we got a new stock pot for making turkey soup, we made another turkey for turkey sammiches, we went to BJ’s for some bulk supplies, etc.
But the majority of my fun was from getting out to do something I have not done nearly lately: bird. Monday took me all the way down to Cape May in search of the four rarities there – IVORY GULL, SWAINSON’S HAWK, EURASIAN WIGEON and RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD. I ended up getting 2 of 4, so not a bad day. I followed it up by seeing another eastern rarity – a SPOTTED TOWHEE – at Palmyra Cove the next day.
I got up early – really early – in order to make the trek down to the birding mecca of Cape May, only this time the mecca had some extra rarities to enjoy. My first stop was the Bree-Zee-Lee Marina where the IVORY GULL – a rarity normally restricted to the arctic – had made a lengthy appearance and was giving people a lot of chances to see it. I got to Cape May very quickly and had no problem finding the place, and I was treated by the fact that the bird was already there waiting. I wasn’t there more than 5 minutes when the bird decided to give us all a flyby and I got great looks at the beautiful white feathers that were starkly different from almost all of the gulls that normally habitate this area. After about 45 minutes, it disappeared and I decided to move on, but I had my first lifer of the day.
Reports on the hummingbird had been nil because of the cold weather, so I decided to give the hawk a try. Unfortunately, it – as hawks are wont to do – was flying to other places, so I missed that one. From there, it was a trip over the Cape May Lighthouse with some other birders that I met, where we went looking for whatever might be around, but most especially the EURASIAN WIGEONS, which I had missed a few times before. 3 drakes and a single hen had been seen there earlier, but there was only a single, young drake hanging out when I visited – but it was a enough. My second lifer of the day!
To follow up, I went back to the marina to see if I could get another look at the Ivory Gull — and although it took a bit for me to find him, when I did I was treated to some closer up views, such as the picture below. And then, it was time to drive back. Without even looking too hard, I was able to see quite a few species, including two lifebirds – all by about noon.
The next day wasn’t as nice weather-wise – in fact, it was pretty cold – but the destination was literally right up the road, and Shari could join me. We wandered up to the area by the Little Pit where the SPOTTED TOWHEE had been seen, hoping we would make it’s 9:00 a.m. itinerary (the bird seemed to disappear about 9 a.m. every morning). Lo and behold, my luck held from the previous day and it was in it’s accustomed spot almost as soon as we got there. However, getting good looks at the little lady was a little tougher as towhees often enjoy the thickets of brush. But I was able to get a few shots. This wasn’t a lifebird for me – I’d seen them in Vancouver a few years back, but it was a first-of-state bird for NJ for me, and a lifer for Shari (not that she really keeps track). Still, 3 rarities in 2 days was a nice departure from all of the recent work.
Now I just have to look forward to my wife’s annual trip to Barnegat and Forsythe for my wife’s birthday.
It seems that things can be too good to be true, and such was the case for our rental for the week. I mentioned yesterday that it was a bit small, and while that was not such a huge deal, some other … characteristics were a bit more off-putting. Continue reading
After a long year and lots of hard work, Shari needed a vacation and I loved the idea of a week at the beach. She did the research, since it can be tough to find a dog-friendly place at the shore, and secured a small bungalow down in Cape May for a week. Continue reading
On Monday, one of Shari and my Flickr friends, PhotoPatty, was in town with her husband Al, and we decided to get together so that I could show them around the birding hot spots in NJ. Or rather, some of the coastal hot spots (such as they are in the middle of summer). Continue reading
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.
I can not seem to catch up with my writing (or pretty much anything else) lately. And there has been some good stuff happening. Continue reading
Our last day in the Cave Creek area we wanted to hit some of those places we had missed earlier and look for a couple of species that we really wanted to see: Juniper Titmice, Scaled and Montezuma Quail and Zone-tailed Hawks. We also wanted to make a trip up to the Chiricahua National Monument to see the amazing rock formations there. Continue reading
I’ve always been a sketcher during meetings, but unlike many other people where doodling is a sign of boredom or inattention, with my ADD, it actually keeps me focused. By keeping my hands and my right brain focused on the paper, it keeps my ears and mind on Wednesday is being said. Strange but true.
My doodles have cycles: a week or two of realism, a couple weeks of abstract line art, a period of typography, etc. Lately, I’ve been doing bird sketches from memory in the margins. I’m not sure if it’s because I still have birds in the brain from Arizona (probably), if I just have birds in my head right now (definitely) or if I am just enjoying doing some realistic drawings of something that I have a fairly decent picture of in my mind’s eye. Regardless, it’s been fun to try to draw a reasonable likeness of some birds from memory in my notebook. Some samples are below. I just wish I had a better scanner for them (the details didn’t come out very well).
