Cape May rarely fails to surprise and this morning's Cape May Point State Park walk was no exception. A very windy morning didn't bode well, with thoughts of no visible migration taking place and the few birds that were around lurking in the undergrowth. As it turned out though, we had a great time and saw some great birds. Sheltered spots among the trees gave us great views of singing male Black-and-white Warblers busily working the tree trunks, a Blue-headed Vireo showed very briefly and later we chanced upon a mixed feeding flock which consisted mostly of White-throated Sparrows but with Chipping, Savannah and Field Sparrows, American Goldfinches and a female Indigo Bunting all in the mix. Several Great and Snowy Egrets and Great Blue Herons graced the edges of the ponds and a fly-over Cattle Egret was a nice surprise find.
The plover ponds gave us some great up-close-and-personal views of Least Sandpipers, as well as a very spotty Spotted Sandpiper. We'd had so much to look at that we ran out of time to check for seabird offshore, but Tom Parsons had taken a look and reported few birds moving out there in these high winds.
Location: Cape Island--Cape May Pt.
Observation date: 4/28/10
Number of species: 60
Canada Goose 6
Mute Swan 4
Mallard 10
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 250
Great Blue Heron 2
Great Egret 6
Snowy Egret 2
Cattle Egret 1
Turkey Vulture 10
Osprey 7
Bald Eagle 3
Merlin 1
Killdeer 2
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 1
Least Sandpiper 15
Laughing Gull 30
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 12
Forster's Tern 8
Rock Pigeon 10
Mourning Dove 5
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) 1
Eastern Kingbird 2
White-eyed Vireo 1
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 2
Fish Crow 6
Horned Lark 1
Purple Martin 12
Tree Swallow 6
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 1
Barn Swallow 150
Carolina Chickadee 5
Tufted Titmouse 1
Carolina Wren 6
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 20
European Starling 10
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 4
Black-and-white Warbler 2
Common Yellowthroat 5
Eastern Towhee 1
Chipping Sparrow 3
Field Sparrow 2
Savannah Sparrow 4
Song Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 30
Northern Cardinal 6
Indigo Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird 20
Common Grackle 35
Brown-headed Cowbird 4
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 10
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
