Maine Outdoor Journal

I returned from a week in New Jersey (more about that shortly) after a long day of driving in the rain on Saturday. On Sunday morning, Luke and I birded the Biddeford Pool area, looking for late migrants and rarities.

Although the “Mega” eluded us today, we did have an overall quite productive morning, with good diversity and some fairly good late-ish migrants. A good number of Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Savannah, Song, White-throated, and Dark-eyed Juncos were scattered about. Seaducks, including Red-breasted Mergansers and all three scoters, along with Common Loons and Red-necked Grebes (19 total), are rapidly building. Here’s a quick list of a few of the highlights:
- 1,500+ blackbirds over I-295 at the Royal River before dawn.
- 2 Field Sparrows, East Point
- 1 Black-legged Kittiwake, East Point
- 10 Long-tailed Ducks (First of Fall), Ocean Avenue.
- 3 imm. White-rumped Sandpipers, Ocean Avenue.
- 5 Blackpoll Warblers, Biddeford Pool neighborhood.
- 1 Lincoln’s Sparrow, Ocean Avenue.
- 1 imm. Red-shouldered Hawk, near Biddeford Pool Beach parking lot.
- 250+ Dunlin, 49 Black-bellied Plovers, 3 Greater Yellowlegs, 1 Ruddy Turnstone, 3 Horned Larks, behind Hattie’s.

And, by the way, despite the sunny skies and light to moderate wind, looking at those swells offshore made me VERY thankful that we cancelled the pelagic for the entire weekend (we’ll be trying again next Saturday, 10/31)!

Now, for a quick summary of my NJ trip . . . Since I have been away for a week, I am quite a bit behind in work, as you may have guessed, so I will use an efficient “outline-type” form to fill you in. This was a “research” trip for a current writing project, so the focus of the trip was spending time with those knowledgeable in some of the topics that I am currently working on, so I spent quite a bit of time talking to folks, studying and evaluating radar images and current literature, and yes, birding my tail off! In a nutshell, I spent the week using weather forecasts, wind patterns, and radar images to predict where and when to go birding and spend my birding time as efficiently and effectively as possible.

10/17: Arrived in Somerset, NJ at the home of David and Inga (and now, Corrina!) La Puma, radar guru of woodcreeper.com.

10/18: Garret Mountain with David. After predicting a possible fallout after a careful analysis of the morning’s radar images, we headed over to Garret (after stopping for my welcome-to-NJ pork roll, egg, and cheese on a bagel sandwich) to see what we could find. While it wasn’t a huge fallout by any means, it was actually a very productive outing: 125+ White-throated Sparrows; 100+ Yellow-rumped Warblers; about 20 Song, 10 Swamp, and 30+ Chipping Sparrows; 12 Ruby-crowned and about 20 Golden-crowned Kinglets; a very good total of 20+ Hermit Thrushes; 1 Common Yellowthroat, 2 Northern Parulas, 4 Palm Warblers; 5 Dark-eyed Juncos; and 6 Eastern Phoebes. Not bad for 39 degrees and light rain!

2) Visit with dear friends Bruce and Laura who I haven’t seen for a couple of years!
10/19: Hutchenson Memorial Forest, Somerset: Skies clearing overnight as coastal low pulled away to NE. NW winds 10-15mph at 3,000ft through most of the night. Surface winds light NW over Central NJ and N towards shore. More birds apparently departed than arrived, but still good numbers.

Cape May, Sandy Hook, and Central Jersey all looked good, so I stayed local and first birded the Hutchinson Forest with David. Moderate numbers of American Robins and small numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers overhead at dawn. Numbers of White-throated and Swamp Sparrows in particular.

2) Cold Brook Preserve, Oldwick, with Evan Obercian. With winds picking up considerably, sparrowing was tough, but numbers of Savannah, Song, and White-throated were present, along with lots of Red-winged Blackbirds, 40+ American Pipits, and 3 Vesper Sparrows.

3) One of Evan’s other local patches was more productive, being sheltered from the wind. 3 Field and 4 Lincoln’s Sparrows were highlights, with more activity from the aforementioned species. Interestingly, it was a most similar mix of species as Evan and I had when he was visiting Maine and we birded my Dragon Field patch a couple of weeks ago.

4) Cape May Hawkwatch, Cape May Point (following stop at Westside Market for corn fritters). With northwesterly winds, a very good hawkcount (over 1,600 birds on the day) was enjoyed, including a solid late-day falcon flight of American Kestrels and Merlins.




5) Dusk at the South Cape May Meadows with Michael O’Brien, Cameron Cox, and most of the fall intern staff. 12-15 American Bitterns, 3 Black-crowned Night-Herons, 3+ Wilson’s Snipe, 2+ American Woodcocks, 2 LONG-EARED OWLS, 1 BARN OWL, and one FLYING Pied-billed Grebe that circled around 3 times before gaining altitude. Full-speed, whirring flight a life behavior for all of us!

6) (Yup, it was a wicked long day!). Listening for migrants with Michael O’Brien at various points in Cape May Point; 11:00pm to 12:15am. Light west wind, clear. Decent number of migrants, mostly Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers, and Savannah Sparrows. One Dickcissel heard.

7) Finally to bed at the home of my gracious hosts, Michael and his wife, Louis Zemaitis.

10/20: Higbee Beach Morning Flight count at the dike at the Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area with Cameron Cox, et al. Light SW, mostly clear; 7:00 to 10:00am. Cameron and others were a bit disappointed, but I had fun! One CONNECTICUT WARBLER (possibly record-late), 3000+ Yellow-rumped Warblers, 664 American Robins, 530 Red-winged Blackbirds, 400 Tree Swallows, 177 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, 13 species of warblers including late Yellow, the CT, and one ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS. 101 species recorded from the dike by Cameron this morning.





Cameron, Michael, and Scott


Official dog of the morning flight, Monkey

2) Higbee Beach WMA woods and fields: lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers and rather vociferous Carolina Wrens, good number of the expected sparrows.

3) Hawkwatch with cheese steaks and more corn fritters from Westside Market. Handfuls of the most common species present, plus a handful of kettling Red-shouldered and Broad-winged Hawks.

4) South Cape May Meadows walk in lovely early-evening light. One Ruddy Duck, a couple of Blackpoll Warblers, and lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers. At dusk, it was back up to the platform with Michael, Louise, Cameron, and Arthur: no owls and only 1 American Bittern, 5 Wilson’s Snipe, 2 Wood Ducks, and one calling Virginia Rail.

10/21: Higbee Dike, 7:10-9:15am. Very light NW, warm, clear; very light flight of only 1500+ birds, but including one DICKCISSEL, 1 ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, and a goodly 40+ Blackpoll Warblers.

2) The Beanery: A very pleasant stroll on a rapidly-warming morning yielded 6 species of warblers, (1 PRAIRIE, 5 Palm, 3 Common Yellowthroat, 2 Northern Parula, 1 Black-throated Blue, and lots of Yellow-rumps), a good number of sparrows, and one Blue Grosbeak.

3) Cape Island Creek with Cameron. 2 Vesper Sparrows, 2 Red-eyed Vireos, 13 Field and 14 White-crowned Sparrows. 1 immature ORCHARD ORIOLE – perhaps record-late, but try as we might, we could not turn it into NJ’s first Hooded Oriole.

4) Lunch at The Depot with my “usual” grilled veggie and cheese hoagie.


5) Afternoon – computer work followed by wiffleball game.

10/22: Two Mile Landing with Michael at dawn, studying sharp-tailed Sparrows. 5 Saltmarsh and 2 Nelson’s. 4 calling Clapper Rails. With waves of Yellow-rumped Warblers passing overhead, followed by a frantic phone call from Cameron, Michael and I were racing up to the Higbee dike.


2) Higbee Dike. Mayhem! Massive Yellow-rumped Warbler flight; flight of the season. Final tally of 23,717. 2,595 American Robins, 500 Tree Swallows, 1 late Bobolink, 42 WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPERS, perhaps an all-time Cape Island high count. 1 PARASITIC JAEGER chasing gulls offshore. In one hour, as one of THREE counters, I alone tallied 4,840 Yellow-rumps alone, eclipsing my all-time single morning high for ALL species at Sandy Point!!!! Words cannot describe a morning like this!

3) Departed Cape May. Although I had the massive flight that I needed for my project this morning, the all around great birding at this time of year at Cape May, the great people, and so on, always makes it hard to leave. For unknown reasons, this time, I had an even harder time leaving than usual. In fact, as I departed, saying goodbye to Pete Dunne, (this season’s hawkwcounter!), he even commented, “Enjoy dinner with your mom, and I’ll see you tomorrow!”

4) Edwin By Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge – Brigantine Division, aka “Brig.” Good diversity, as usual, with lots of shorebirds, especially Dunlin and Black-bellied Plovers. One Common Moorhen, 3 Caspian Terns. I was focused however, on finding the ROSEATE SPOONBILL that has been present here since July (Jeannette and I looked for it, unsuccessfully when we were down visiting at the end of that month). 3rd State Record. After all but giving up hope, I found it roosting on the tidal marsh side, opposite the outlet pipes with 1 Great and 6 Snowy Egrets, a mere 75 feet or so away, and in perfect light! NJ Bird #333 for me!








5) Dinner and visiting with Mom.

10/23: Sandy Hook with Scott Barnes. I love Sandy Hook, and I love birding it with good friend Scott, but I DO NOT love birding it on strong NE winds! There were a fair number of passerines, mostly Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows in the woods, but overall landbirding was slow. No morning flight. Large number of Double-crested Cormorants and especially Brant moving offshore, with a feeding frenzy of Northern Gannets. 53 species in all, but unfortunately, we could not refind the Sage Thrasher that was here in the middle of the week. Would have been a nice state-bird to ice the cake of a great week of birding.

2) Dinner, followed by local tavern in Edison area for Rutgers vs. Army game with good friends James, Jess, John, and Rebecca. RU won easily, but perhaps not as easily as they should have. Improved to 5-2 on the season, but 0-2 in Big East play. Last few draught Yuenglings for a while.

10/24: Late start to the drive north after game and a few drinks. Oh yeah, and a lot of rain – heavy at times. Could have checked local parks for a fallout, but the fine scotch at 1:00am probably while talking to my best friend prevented that from happening!

2) Long, often wet drive home in which my sleep deprivation from the past week was beginning to catch up with me!

3) A good night’s sleep, finally!

For more on the happenings in Cape May over the week of my visit, along with specific totals from the hawkcount and the morning flight, etc, visit:

The blogs of the seasonal staff.

View From the Cape, by Don Freiday.

And, for a little summary of the week’s migration, check out David’s Woodcreeper.com