On Friday, October 2, 11 intrepid birders set out from Massachusetts in the wee hours of the morning, and made good time through Connecticut to get to our first meet up spot of the trip at Edwin Forsythe NWR (aka Brig/Brigantine).
We drove the 8 mile auto loop, stopping at several spots to scan and take photos. We had particularly great looks at very active Forster's Terns feeding (some 200+ total) and one flock on wood pilings that didn't flush when we parked right next to them. We also spotted 3 fully grown young of the year begging their parents for food.
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| Forster's Tern juvenile |
We made a quick stop at the Ocean City Welcome Center rookery to see if any birds were lingering there (it's well past nesting season at this time of the year), and were rewarded with good scope views of 11 juvenile Tricolored Herons.
After checking into our hotels we caught the sunset at Cove Beach, where we had 61 (!!) Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the beach, allowing for nice study of various ages and plumages. We also had a few Black Skimmers fly by at dusk, and Sanderling and Oystercatchers on the beach.
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| Lesser Black-backed Gull |
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On Saturday, the overnight bird migration was the second highest of fall to date for Cape May county (per Birdcast), and a few of us listened pre-dawn for birds passing overhead outside our hotel in Wildwood. In addition to several Blackpoll and Yellow-rumped Warblers, we heard an American Golden-Plover and Green Heron (the only ones of the trip for each).
We visited Higbee Beach WMA and had hundreds of warblers whizz by us on the morning flight platform. Most didn't land and with the overcast skies they were tough to identify to species, but we did get to ID a few. Once the birds settled in, we birded around Higbee Beach, and we accrued a number of target species including a Bay-breasted Warbler by the porta johns, a singing and briefly seen White-eyed Vireo, multiple Brown Thrashers, and a hatch year female Cape May Warbler. However, the undoubted highlight bird of the morning (and for many the best bird of the trip), was the Connecticut Warbler that we had amazing looks at, as it remained perched in the open for 10+ minutes. It had been found by a trio of young boys from Maryland no older than ten, and when they pointed it out to us, somehow the bird didn't flush into the thicket, but was content to hang out in the open.
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| Connecticut Warbler |
After Higbee we swung by the Hawkwatch, adding 10+ American Kestrels and migrating Great Blue Herons to our tally.
The weather wasn't the best in the afternoon, and we stopped at Nummy Island and Stone Harbor Point hoping to see some shorebirds. We mused about perhaps breaking 100 species on the day, but we didn't think it was looking likely with the slow afternoon and rainy/windy conditions.
We rallied after a quick Wawa lunch, and visited Two Mile Landing at peak high tide. A Common Ringed-Plover had been seen there earlier in the week, but it seemed clear it was long gone (but you never know!) We had some nice looks at roosting shorebirds like Ruddy Turnstones and Dunlin, and picked up Little Blue Heron and Nelson's Sparrow for our day list.
Our last birding stop of the day was South Cape May Meadows (SCMM), and here the big highlight was the 40+ Merlins that were zipping and zooming all over the place. Every time we looked up at least 1 was in view, often as many as 4.
We didn't have an up to date count for the day list (yours truly was slow submitting eBird checklists), so we didn't know what our running tally was, and didn't know until dinner that we'd actually well surpassed 100 species on the day. We had 8 new species at SCMM, and we ended the day with 105! The final new bird of the day was a Sora!
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Sunday morning saw another huge flight of birds (per Birdcast), but with a cold rain starting at 4 a.m. we weren't sure how the morning would go. Nevertheless the entire group was gung-ho and excited, and we went to the Coral Ave Dune Crossing for dawn. It might not have been a great sign that for most of the time we were the only birders there, but we toughed it out and had some great birds. Dozens more Merlins were zooming all over, along with 5+ Peregrine Falcons, 80+ Royal Terns, a few hundred Yellow-rumped Warblers that moved through the dunes, and several flocks of White Ibises that flew low overhead (we estimated 120 total).
Soaked but happy birders! (Photo: Annie Massed)
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| Well camouflaged Common Nighthawk |
The group split up at this point, with one group hitting Edwin Forsythe NWR again on the way out (highlights here were 400+ Black-bellied Plovers, 150+ Northern Shovelers, a seen Marsh Wren, and a Pectoral Sandpiper). Another group went up to Jake's Landing, where they had 4 Clapper Rails out in the open. Later, that group had 60 Black Skimmers back at the southern tip of Cape May.
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On Monday the group of 4 (Kathy, Mark, Laura & Nancy) that stayed an extra night, feeling envious of the pancake breakfast the rest of us had the previous day, went to Bill's Pancake House in Cape May. Wisely, they kept their binoculars on them, and during breakfast they spotted a flock of 96 Black Skimmers flying by, showing it pays to #AlwaysBeBirding!
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| Nancy, Kathy & Mark spotting Black Skimmers at breakfast. (Photo: Laura de la Flor) |
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Thank you to all the participants for making this such an enjoyable trip!
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Here is a link to the trip report: (129 total species!)
https://ebird.org/tripreport/578371
- Dan O'Brien
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