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This week Jeanine, Pete, and I headed upstate to search for birds that breed in the northwest highlands of New Jersey but not here in the southern part of the state. Our home for the past four days was a splendiferous cabin in High Point State Park. Let’s start with the cabin, a three-bedroom, five-bed home with a wood-burning stove, kitchen, picnic tables, firepit, and fully covered porch just 200 ft. from Steeny Kill Lake, located a short distance downslope from the High Point monument.

The front of High Point State Park Cabin #2. Our home for four days.

The interior of the cabin contained three bedrooms, an expansive living area with two tables and a wood-burning stove, a kitchen, and a spacious bathroom with a shower. Heavenly.

The kitchen was more than adequate, with an electric stove and refrigerator/freezer.

Pete and Jeanine on Mexican night at our cabin, featuring chips and salsa, beef and bean burritos, guacamole, rice, corn, and lemonade. Topped with a generous dollop of sour cream.  And don’t forget the strawberry shortcake dessert.  Yum yum. We ate very well on this trip.

A trio of happy campers re-living the day’s adventures in front of the wood-burning stove. It was chilly this week, with nighttime temperatures dipping into the low 40s, so the warmth from the fire felt great.

We were greeted immediately by a pair of Eastern Phoebes nesting on the porch, singing Acadian and Least Flycatchers, and Yellow-throated Vireos, later joined by Cerulean Warblers. It was an excellent start. For the following three days we made stops along the major roads of both High Point State Park and Stokes State Forest and explored their side trails. The birding was good, as we were able to find breeding Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Brown Creeper, Blue-headed Vireo, and Louisiana Waterthrush, and multiple Cerulean Warblers that inhabit the neck-straining upper canopy. A highlight from Stokes was a great day strolling along the Big Flat Brook near the NJ School of Conservation, eating lunch on a hillside above the brook while being serenaded by Blackburnian and Black-throated Green Warblers. Also in Stokes, we happened upon a Ruffed Grouse crossing the road, followed by four chicks. The hen paused in the thick underbrush, waiting for the chicks, enabling a documentation shot.

This Ovenbird was not pleased with us. Apparently we were close to its nest, and it wanted to bring food to its young.

A Ruffed Grouse gathering up her chicks in the thick undergrowth.

At the entrance to the Kuser Bog trail

Jeanine photographing wildflowers along a typical High Point trail.

Wild Coffee, a plant that I had not seen previously, with its distinctive flower.

Some rain was predicted on the second day, so we drove nearly an hour away and across the NY border, to the 600 acre Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge.  The grasslands provided a pleasant contrast with the forest birding that we had been doing at High Point, plus a few great species were being reported there, and I wanted to see how the refuge had changed since it was modified a few years ago. The refuge was great. This site used to be a military airport (Galeville Airport), but the long-abandoned cement airstrips were removed, replaced with a nice trail that wound through and near the outskirts of the property, and a viewing platform, gazebo, and a few well-spaced blinds were installed. Overall, it was a great improvement.  We were unsure of where our target birds were being sighted, which made it a daunting needle-in-a-grassland-haystack visit, but the birding gods were smiling upon us. We were about to give up at the first blind and move onto the more distant next one, when Pete stepped outside and said “I got it”. There just a few yards in front of us was a singing Dickcissel, bringing a smile to our faces.

One of the new blinds at the Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge

The lemony breast and supercilium made this Dickcissel easily recognizable.

The smiles were partly from seeing a Dickcissel, which I don’t see often enough, and partly because now we knew that our next target should be nearby. Indeed, a mere 25 yards or so away we heard a short wheezy hiccup ‘song’, and a sparrow popped up onto a stalk and continued its song.  This was a Henslow’s Sparrow, a new life bird for me.  Although Henslow’s are typically skulkers, this generous individual remained perched in sight and singing for at least five minutes, only a few yards away from the trail, giving ample opportunity for photos.  This is cooperativity with a capital ‘C’.

My lifer Henslow’s Sparrow.

The remainder of the refuge was a pleasure to walk through, with dozens of Bobolinks calling and flying back and forth, Eastern Meadowlarks popping up occasionally, infrequent Grasshopper and Savannah Sparrows singing and flitting about, and two pairs of American Kestrels hunting near their nest boxes.

The Bobolinks were abundant and delightful in the refuge.

After returning back to the cabin and finishing dinner on our final evening, we took the two-minute walk to the lakeshore and sat on ‘our’ bench. On the opposite shore a Great Horned Owl perched on a tall snag, providing a fitting finale to the evening and to the adventure.

Our lakeside bench. A great place to enjoy sunset.

A Great Horned Owl silhouetted to end the trip.

At least once each spring I like to visit Garret Mountain Reservation, the top spring migrant trap in New Jersey. This year I needed a Garret fix more than usual, since the 2017 spring migration here in NJ has been…how should I put it? Tepid? Slow? Disappointing? Pitiful? I’m beginning to worry that this is the new normal and the good old days of trees dripping with migrants are a thing of the past, but let’s leave that discussion for another day and instead try to focus on the positive side of today. Hopes were high; despite the lousy migration so far, yesterday the number of birds picked up a bit locally, and with winds coming from the south, we were hoping that today would be ‘The Day’. Clearly other birders had the same hopes, as we saw several familiar faces before we even left the car. Due to the long commute, we arrived at 9AM, late by birding standards, and started strolling the grounds. One thing that I do like about places like Garret is the ability to stroll; to wander towards wherever the next bird appears or is singing from.

OK, it’s not an uncommon bird, but a Common Grackle can look super when taking a drink in great lighting.

What’s going on up there? An inquisitive Northern Flicker.

The birding today was good by Garret standards, great by the standards of any other location. The highlight reel starts with a Mourning Warbler. Any day with a Mourning is a good one, but this bird was cooperative, feeding in the phragmites instead of hiding in the thick underbrush. I enjoyed watching the bird so much that I forgot to take the camera out. That’s the way that it is these days; I’m not sure if it’s maturity or laziness, but photos don’t seem so important most days. But I did take the camera out occasionally. Like when a textbook-perfect male Scarlet Tanager was feeding on some insects hatching low to the ground. Or at lunchtime, when our lunch partner Joan pointed out an orange variant Scarlet Tanager. This bird was so orange that I incorrectly identified it as a Baltimore Oriole upon the first view.

Scarlet Tanager hopping after some insects hatching on a log.

Our lunchtime orange variant Scarlet Tanager.

Lunchtime included two other highlights. As I was eating my tuna on toast with hot peppers (trademark GP), I heard a familiar song. Is that a Tennessee Warbler? Jeanine agreed, and we put down our sandwiches (what’s more important…food or birds?), picked up the bins, scrambled towards the sound, and found the bird singing loudly and persistently from high up in the canopy. So we sat back down to our sandwiches and after just one bite of my tuna on toast with hot peppers (trademark GP), I mentioned that a Canada Warbler was waist-high 10 feet behind the girls. Sandwiches back down again. That was immediately followed by the Orange Tanager. You get the idea. What a great lunch.

Among other highlights were several eye-level Blackpoll Warblers and dozens of Swainson’s Thrushes that were feeding low. The challenge was to locate a Gray-cheeked Thrush within the more common Swainson’s, and we were able to find two of them, including one popping into the background while watching our first-of-season Lincoln’s Sparrow. Late in the day we still didn’t want to go home despite the scorching 95-degree temperatures that greatly reduced bird activity, and we were rewarded with a few more Bay-breasted Warblers, another Tennessee Warbler, and spotting an unexpected Solitary Sandpiper in the wet woods. It was a fitting end to a super day.

One of four Bay-breasted Warblers that we saw today.

A Blackpoll Warbler providing excellent views.

Swainson’s Thrushes were all over the grounds today.

I’m used to seeing Solitary Sandpiper on mudflats, but not usually in a wet woods environment.

We ended up with 17 wood-warbler species, a tad shy of the hoped-for 20-warbler day, but with these high-quality sightings nobody was complaining. I look forward to returning again next year.  Maybe then we’ll find that Cape May Warbler that we missed today.

We are currently in what is perhaps the best time of year in terms of species diversity here in the northeast. Some ducks and other winter species are still lingering, shorebirds are moving through, and warblers and other passerines are headed northward. Last week Jeanine and I participated in the weekly survey at Forsythe NWR, and when we entered our sightings into eBird, I was surprised to find that we had tallied 92 species with relatively little effort, with double digit numbers each of warblers, ducks, and shorebirds. That raised the possibility of trying to find 100 species in one day at one location. It’s not a novel idea; after all, we live in a birding world of Big Years, Big Days, Big Sits, Century Runs, and Break-a-Hundred Days. I had never thought of trying it myself though, but the idea of trying for 100 species in a very limited area was very appealing to me. And thankfully, Jeanine was game for trying it too.

Neither of us had the energy to start in pre-dawn hours for nocturnal or crepuscular species, so we began at 8AM. The weather reports were far from optimal, with fog predicted in the morning, and strong winds in the afternoon. Indeed, when I arrived, the woods were bathed in fog, thick enough to convince me to leave my camera in the car. (Besides, as we all know, leaving the camera behind is the best way to ensure finding good birds, right?) We did well in the woods and along the pond shores, and in addition to many of the expected common species, we also found two Hooded Warblers, a first-of-season (FOS) Blackburnian Warbler, four Spotted Sandpipers, Wood Ducks, a Veery, and late Red-breasted Nuthatches (it’s been that kind of year for Red-breasteds). After stopping by the car for some snacks and the camera (by this time the fog had dissipated), we were rewarded with a Blue Grosbeak, and Jeanine spotted the bird of the day, a male Summer Tanager. As we headed into the marsh drive, we already had 46 species, with shorebirds, ducks, and waders still unaccounted for. It was looking promising.

The bird of the day. Summer Tanager. It’s the first one that I have ever seen at Forsythe.

A Northern Waterthrush from an atypical vantage point. I’m more used to seeing them from above as they probe along muddy shorelines.

A Brown Thrasher foraging in the leaf litter.

A singing Common Yellowthroat.

On the drive, the tide was high, so there were no mudflats in the tidal marsh channel, but fortunately some mudflats were available in the southwest impoundment. We did well with shorebirds there, spotting an impressive flock of Whimbrels, many peeps, and a nice mix of shorebirds transitioning into breeding plumage, with a pair of uncommon Stilt Sandpipers being a highlight. These birds can be difficult to identify in fall when I typically see them in their non-breeding plumage. We took a lunch break near the Peregrine Tower, and smiled after finding that our tally was already up to 92 species.

This is a Black-headed Gull that has been hanging around Forsythe for a few weeks now, just beginning to develop its namesake hood.

A Snowy Egret poses for his close-up. The lore colors are brilliant during breeding season.

Small part of a large flock of Whimbrels that flew across the marsh.

A pair of Stilt Sandpipers were mixed in with a flock of Yellowlegs and Short-billed Dowitchers. They were relatively easy to locate due to the rufous patches on their face.

A pair of Gull-billed Terns join the crowd on a popular mudflat.

Now that we were over 90 species, the countdown to 100 could begin in earnest. But the winds were increasing in intensity, to the point that it was hard to open the car doors, and the car interior was layered with a veneer of dust coming through the vents. A fly-by FOS Least Tern was very welcome, and a group of ducks hunkered in the reeds harbored a Northern Shoveler and two Blue-winged Teals. A flock of Starlings that were struggling with the wind on the shoreline brought us up to 96 species (I have never been as happy to see Starlings!). At the end of the marsh we finally found a few Black-bellied Plovers and heard the delightful song of the Marsh Wren. Now it was back into the woods for a short walk out of the wind, needing only two more species. A Great Crested Flycatcher cooperated. What would be species #100? A split second after I asked that question, an Ovenbird sang its loud “tee-cher tee-cher tee-cher” and we celebrated. After picking up a few more species in the fields (Field Sparrow, Prairie Warbler, and Eastern Kingbird), we were at 103 species after one full loop of the refuge.

A Clapper Rail crossing a channel as the tide was receding.

We drove the loop again, but the winds were fierce, gusting up to 36 mph. Having broken into triple digits we could relax and enjoy longer looks at the birds as we padded the list. We picked up a few more species, ending up with a Tri-colored Heron (another FOS) being blown across the marsh for species #109 after a little more than 10 hours of birding.  Not bad at all.

Black Skimmers were roosting on the sandbar and fed close to the Wildlife Drive.

A trio of Forster’s Terns captured in an interesting pattern.

A Box Turtle.

It was an interesting day. I generally avoid any form of birding that smacks of competition or that accentuates numbers, but this was fun. I suspect that this was the most bird species that I have seen in a single day, and it was even more rewarding to do it in such a limited area. Will we do it again? In the fall? Or next year? Or at a different location? Stay tuned.

2016 was a great birding year for me. Correction: it was a TERRIFIC birding year for me. A super year. An outstanding year. I assume that you get the picture. How good was it? One measure was that I saw two long sought-after lifers this year in New Jersey (Wilson’s Storm-petrel and Philadelphia Vireo), but neither one of them individually made the top-ten list. Also not making the list were Varied Thrush, Red-necked Phalarope, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, or any other birds that were chased this year; somehow those chased birds seem less and less interesting each year. Well, that’s enough about what didn’t make the list. What did make it? Let’s count them down.

10. Springtime on the Bashakill. I don’t get many chances to bird with brother Rich these days, but in May we took an extended weekend, heading up to the Bashakill in Orange County NY, stopping at Garrett Mountain on the way back. There were no super-rarities, but the weather was perfect, we had no shortage of nice birds (several Mourning Warblers, my first ever perched Common Nighthawk, and a pair of Yellow-bellied Flycatchers), and it was just great birding again with Rich, being in the rolling hills of southern NY, and meeting John Haas out on the trail. What a super area to visit during spring migration.

The Bashakill. I’d love to have had a canoe to explore in there.

One of our Mourning Warblers in Linear Park, near the Bash.

One of several point-blank male Cape May Warblers at Garrett. Garrett Mountain can be spectacular in spring, and it was great on this day.

9. Common Nighthawks. It was a good year for Common Nighthawks. I saw them perched at Garrett Mountain, perched again at Sandy Hook, I saw them migrating over my village while playing golf, and best of all, Jeanine and I saw and heard them doing their mating displays at Carranza Road. After learning that sound, I even heard them displaying over the local Shop-Rite parking lot. Seeing birds is nice, but watching interesting behaviors raises the experience to another level.

Common Nighthawk at Sandy Hook.

8. Gannet shows. If you’re interested in behaviors, Northern Gannets have to be one of the best birds to watch. Their plunge dives for food are amazing to observe, especially when they occur in large groups. This year Jeanine and I were fortunate to see Gannets feeding very close on two occasions. One day in April we took the Cape May ferry to Lewes, with Gannets feeding in the wake of the ferry for most of the ride across Delaware Bay. In March while walking around the Hook searching unsuccessfully for Glaucous Gulls, a stunning cluster of Gannets was plunge diving repeatedly off-shore, eliciting uncontrollable laughter at the constant barrage of gannets into the water, and then after emerging, they would fly to the back of the line and do it again. Wow.

Northern Gannet following the Cape May ferry.

7. Razorbills. It was a great year for Razorbills, at least for me. I had not yet seen them in New Jersey, so one of my goals was to sit patiently at Manasquan Inlet or Shark River Inlet or Barnegat Inlet and hope that we could see one this year. Well, I lost track of how many we eventually saw in the inlets, but it was probably somewhere around 8-10 Razorbills, with more than half of them giving great views. Now it’s time to find a Jersey Dovekie!

6. Deep water pelagic. I had only been on a single pelagic before this year, while vacationing in Washington. I had no real intention of doing one here, although I knew that I could pick up several lifers by doing a pelagic trip, and in the process find out whether I like this subset of birding. In September, I found myself spontaneously signing up for an overnight trip heading 90 miles from shore. The end result: four lifers seen and photographed, including two NJ review species, and two more lifers missed due to queasiness (nothing chucked overboard though!). It’s probably one of those things that looks better in the rear-view mirror than when you are going through it. But it WAS an adventure, and you don’t get to experience an adventure every day, do you?

Black-capped Petrel, the highlight of our pelagic trip.

A Great Shearwater shearing the water.

5. Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warbler. Jeanine and I were birding at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park in November, hoping that some western rarity might appear on the shrubs or treetops. I was dreaming about Mountain Bluebird or Townsend’s Solitaire or Say’s Phoebe. I was wrong. Instead, Jeanine spotted an Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warbler with a fairly bright yellow throat that we got nice looks at while our cameras remained at our sides. With that yellow throat it was surprisingly easy to re-find it when it moved from bush to bush, feeding and mixing with other Yellow-rumps. Audubon’s is the western sub-species of Yellow-rumped Warbler that I hadn’t even thought of looking for due to the high background of Myrtle Yellow-rumps. We eventually thought of getting photos, but it disappeared behind a dune. When we returned home, we found out that Audubon’s is a NJ review species, the first one that Jeanine found herself. And a great find it was. We submitted reports to the NJ records committee, and we’ll find out next year if the sighting will be accepted without photos.

4. Lapland Longspur. Jeanine and I took ten canoeing trips into the Sedge Islands this year. On the last trip of the season in October, we weren’t sure what birds would still be around. While walking through the isolated stands of Spartina alterniflora that is predictably beginning to populate the sandflats, a bird moved in among the grasses. It eventually poked out and gave excellent views and photo ops. It was not a Saltmarsh Sparrow (which I suspected), or the better Nelson’s Sparrow (which I hoped for), but instead was an even better Lapland Longspur, a bird that was not on our radar for the day. As I’ve said before, one of my favorite things to hear when birding is “I wasn’t expecting THAT!”.

Our unexpected Lapland Longspur.

3. Sandwich Tern. In August Jeanine and I took our first-ever excursion walking 2.8 miles out to the tip of North Brig Natural Area, hoping for some of the rarer terns (think Black, Sandwich, Roseate, and maybe even Bridled). We were not disappointed. First of all, the beach was filled with birds, and I mean filled with birds for nearly the entire length. The species diversity was low, but the sheer numbers were stunning. Then when we reached the tip of the peninsula, Jeanine spotted a Sandwich Tern mixed in with a flock of Royals, just as I was ready to give up. Add to the days sightings an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull, 120 Red Knots, and 12 Piping Plovers, and you have a super day. With birding like that even the numerous greenheads become tolerable.

A sample of the number of birds that were dotting the North Brig shoreline.

Jeanine’s Sandwich Tern.

2. Colombia. The vast majority of my birding this year has been in New Jersey, with the exceptions of a single weekend in NY, a day trip to Delaware on the ferry, and a 12-day trip to the Santa Marta region of Colombia. This was a semi-guided trip, where my friend Pete/Pedro and I spent some days with a guide, and some days birding on our own in the Colombian rain forest, staying in local housing, not in large resorts. We’d wake up in nice location, whether in the rain forest, a coastal woodland, or in desert scrub, walk out the door and see what we could find. That’s an Adventure with a capital ‘A’. It’s always tough to adjust back to local birds after seeing toucans, motmots, guans, puffbirds, and flamingoes.

A male Black-crested Antshrike. You don’t see that in New Jersey.

American Flamingoes in flight. My main target in Colombia, we were not disappointed, seeing a flock of hundreds.

1. Reddish Egret. Sometimes its hard to decide what the top birding moment of the year is. Not so this year. While canoeing in the Sedge Islands with my friend Chris, we came around a bend in a channel and spotted a dullish bird wading in the calmer and shallower water. I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, but told Chris that we should get photos. Fortunately, the bird was patient with us, allowing me to approach closely as I walked through the mucky Spartina marsh to get better lighting for photos. After we got home I immediately checked the field guides and found out that we had an immature Reddish Egret. More surprising to me was how rare this species is in NJ, with only two prior sightings, and happily, it stayed around for a total of 45 days, allowing many birders the opportunity to see it. Several times since then I’ve been introduced to new birders as ‘the guy who found the Reddish Egret’, my new title.  I was able to see Red at least four more times on our canoeing expeditions, to the point where it became an expected sighting. What a great bird.

Red in September, starting to show more color.

Many thanks to my wonderful birding partner Jeanine for sharing most of these outings (and rainbows and snake trips and kayak trips and stargazing), and for making even the least productive trip more enjoyable. It sure makes birding easier when you don’t have to find birds to have a good time.

Post-storm double rainbow at Brig.

Unloading the canoe as the sun sets on our final Sedge Island excursion of the season.

It was going to be a nice fall day weather-wise; calm winds, mostly sunny, with temperatures in the low 70’s. After looking at the wind patterns (from the south) and the radar (I’m still not sure how much to trust the radar images, but I look anyway) it was not likely that many birds would have come in overnight. But how can we not go birding on such a beautiful fall day? On Monday Jeanine and I enjoyed a great day of land birding at Palmyra Cove with a nice variety of lingering warblers including five Nashvilles, and first-of-season Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Purple Finches, Dark-eyed Juncos, and many kinglets (in both flavors) heralding a change in the season. To balance our birding for the week, we decided to try yet one more visit canoeing in the Island Beach Sedge Islands, with a bit of walking the trails beforehand. We were not disappointed.

The trails were quiet. We spotted a kinglet here and a kinglet there. A few Red-breasted Nuthatches appeared, and a scattering of White-throated Sparrows were moving in the brush, but it was pretty quiet overall. The highlights were a Pied-billed Grebe and a FOS distant Common Loon on the dead-calm waters. Overall the birding was slow (to put it kindly). The tide was lowering so we headed out to the water hoping that the birding would be better out there.

This is the way to explore the Sedge Islands.

If nothing else, it was going to be a learning experience. Despite the many trips that I’ve taken to the Sedge Islands over the past three years, I’ve never been there in October. Two years ago Larry and I tried our luck on what must have been a warm November day, but otherwise the birding-by-canoe strategy has ended in late September. Even if the birds didn’t cooperate, it would be great paddling here on a gorgeous day.

After landing on the main sand flats, we were finding the expected birds, although in lower-than-summer numbers.  As expected.  We were seeing the usual gulls, plenty of cormorants, and a smattering of shorebirds that were mostly Black-bellied Plovers, American Oystercatchers, Sanderlings, and Semi-palmated Plovers. Attempts to tease a golden-plover out of the flock were fruitless. A single Brown Pelican rested in the shallows, always nice to see. The medium-sized terns were all gone, but a handful of Royal and Caspian Terns remained. Then we decided to see if we could find an interesting sparrow by walking through the sparse grasses, with me calling ‘here, birdy birdy’. Sure, I know it was a sign of desperation, but sometimes you have to try to talk to them. Almost immediately a single bird flushed and flew a short ways. Our first partial looks were intriguing and left us wanting more, but it was playing hide-and-seek and not giving us enough for a definitive ID; I saw a bit of yellow on the face and was thinking Saltmarsh Sparrow, or if we were lucky, maybe a Nelson’s. Jeanine saw some black lines on the face and was thinking Lark Sparrow. It finally moved into the open on my side of a grassy cluster and to me it looked like a Longspur. I’m not as familiar with the longspurs as I’d like, so I ran back to the canoe for my Sibleys and my camera as Jeanine tried to get photos with her camera. (aside: why is it that every time I leave my camera behind a good bird shows up, and when I carry it around, things are quiet? Does that happen to you too? Are the birding gods playing with us?) After returning and getting better views, it was clear that we were looking at a non-breeding plumaged adult male Lapland Longspur!

Lapland Longspur in the shade of a grassy cluster. From our initial quick looks, that black cheek border was our first clue that it wasn’t one of the expected sparrows.

Eventually it came out fully into the open, and we could see its chestnut wing bar and its strikingly patterned plumage.

Needless to say, this bird was not on our radar. It is such a kick to find a bird that makes you say “I wasn’t expecting to see THAT!”.  For what must have been a half hour or so we patiently waited while the bird moved in and out of the grasses, alternating between my side and Jeanine’s side to keep us both happy. Nobody else was in sight except for a distant pair of clammers.

As we circled the island, the icing on the cake was another visit from a Marbled Godwit, mixed in with a pair of Oystercatchers. So for the third time this year, we spot a Marbled Godwit here and it is not even the top bird of the trip.

Here’s a size comparison (of birds and bills) of Marbled Godwit next to an American Oystercatcher.

For the rest of the day we made a brief attempt to find our old friend the Reddish Egret. We saw it here on our last four trips over the past two months, so it was beginning to feel like a regular sighting, rather than a rarity. But Red has apparently and appropriately moved on. It didn’t matter. We were still basking in the afterglow of the Longspur with big smiles on our faces.

I have come to love fall birding, when almost anything can appear.