As a father, my birding opportunities are limited. During nap time on weekends, I occasionally run out for a quick fix. One frigid Saturday, I told my wife I was heading out for a few minutes of winter waterfowling.

En route to my birding quickie at the convergence of Big Timber Creek into the Delaware River, my path crossed that of an old friend. He followed me to my routine vantage point. We chatted for a few minutes as I showed him the usual subjects including canvasbacks, common mergansers, and bufflehead.

As our conversation focused on my “goofy obsession” with birding, I turned it back on him by asking if he had ever seen a owl in the wild. From there, he was easily persuaded to undertake his first ever owl prowl. The next 20 minutes involved a short drive then a brief hike through a local nature preserve. It took him a little while to find the owl roosting in the evergreen nearby. His expression was priceless. He repeatedly gasped “he’s so cool.”

 My mission for the day was clear – close the deal, turn him into a birder! I called my wife seeking a birding excursion extension. She readily granted permission before I even explained the whole situation. I turned to my still awed friend and asked, “ever see an eagle before?”

We promptly headed further south to the Manington Marsh in Salem County, a very reliable wintering eagle location in New Jersey. Instant success. We were greeted by more than a half dozen Bald Eagles of various ages along with Red-tailed Hawks and many Turkey Vultures. It was already a great day but then . . .

As we drove past several agricultural fields, we observed several Snow Goose carcasses littering the landscape. It struck me as a bit odd but we continued down the road. In a flash, a large raptor buzzed in front of the car like Tom Cruise’s famous tower fly by in Top Gun. I didn’t spill my coffee but did hit the brakes hard and pulled a quick U-turn.

The silhouette screamed falcon but the bird was much too large for the area’s relatively common American Kestrel. In fact, this bird appeared quite large by any falcon standards. It landed in the middle of a field and joined a Turkey Vulture feast on one of the goose carcasses barely a hundred feet away!

With the help of my scope, I became more intimate with the raptor than I ever dreamed possible. This bird was just not right. A uniformly brown back. Thick brown streaking. A faint moustache. A pale eyebrow. A really chunky bird. A crescendo of excitement started to run through my body. This bird was just too right!

As he lifted off, the lazy wingbeats cinched the identification – GYRFALCON.

Being primarily a Jersey birder, I had resigned my hopes of seeing this largest of falcons any time before retirement. The sequence of unexpected events that led to our being in the right place at the right time for this incredible sighting is the near epitome of serendipity.

I turned to my newly recruited part-time birding partner and gloated, “I can’t believe was just saw a #@&%!^@ gyrfalcon! Wasn’t he amazing?!?!”

His sincere retort went something like, “The brown bird was no big deal but weren’t all those vulture tearing apart the geese REALY cool!” The ride home gave ample time to explain the significance of our brush with our visitor from the arctic.

We have birded together on many occasions since that day. Whenever we’re around other birders, this perpetual neophyte turns to an unsuspecting innocent victim and spits out – “Have you ever seen a gyrfalcon in New Jersey? I have!”

Sometime somewhere someone is going to comeback at his rhetorical question with either a “YES” or a fist to the face. My guess is that he will be more surprised by the yes than the fist!

Buying a local paper on September 3rd provided a hearty and satisfying chuckle. The seemingly inappropriate giddiness attracted a few strange looks from the cashier and other patrons at our neighborhood WaWa.

The banner headline glared “ERNESTO’S AFTERMATH.”  I will concede the remnants of this hurricane still packed a slight punch at our temperate latitude. The turbulent tropical visitor dumped 5 inches of rain, broke a few limbs with his gusts, and knocked out power for some people. Yet, the disproportionately dramatic headline was far from accurate. This editorial dispute was rooted in both my optimism and selfishness.

Immediately upon glancing at the two bold words, I flashbacked to the previous morning. There I was standing under the awning of the Sunset Beach Grill in Cape May scoping for storm blown tropical and pelagic birds exiting the Delaware Bay. When we first arrived, Ernesto was desperately trying to hold his ground. By midmorning, his attempts proved futile and the sun slowly emerged.

How was the avian addicted audience rewarded for braving the elements that morning?  Phalaropes and jaegers and terns – oh my! The day’s sightings included 2 dozen Pomarine Jaegers, 9 parasitic, more than 200 Red-necked Phalaropes, a nice array of terns, an early morning Common Nighthawk flying over the beach, and a hunting merlin at close range. 

These birds were nice but not the cause of my convenience store glee. The aforementioned chuckle was so satisfying because of my flashback’s highlights – 3 new life birds.

It’s not often than you can stand on the beach in New Jersey and watch Long-tailed Jaegers, Sooty Terns, and Bridled Terns fly by! While I had several good (if not GREAT) looks at these species, the totals for the day were even more impressive: 3 Long-tailed Jaegers and 11 for each of the tropical terns.

Instead of an “aftermath”, this wonderful storm event brought with it a terrific day in the field and a truly unique birding opportunity. If the paper’s editor had been a birder, I believe the headline may have read more appropriately, “Ernesto’s Bounty.”

 While the store clerk could not comprehend my explanation for the chuckle, several lucky beach wanderers that happened upon our tribe of tropical storm birders the day before were amazed to learn about the connection between hurricanes and birds. We definitely piqued their interest in birding.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to post anything new.  I definitely need to fix that in the days and weeks ahead.  August and September have been busy, both professionally and personally. In addition to getting ready for a new school year and “daddydom”, I have been working on upcoming education programs for National Biodiversity Parks, a New jersey based conservation organization.  Learn more about about NBP at their web site:

www.nationalbiodiversityparks.org

Although my birding opportunities were limited, those few recent experiences have been truly memorable!

There have been some very exciting birding events and productive birding recruitment opportunities that I am eager to share including:

• the Western Reef Heron trip to Maine
• Hurricane Ernesto birding in Cape May
• environmental science camp with my students
• and many other upcoming posts!

Years ago, my wife and I were cruising the backroads en route to Cape May.  We blew by a light colored bird with a really long tail sitting on a wire.  Already running late for our beach rendezvous with friends, we neglected to go back for a better look.

Having only been recently introduced to birding. I knew very little about the incredible diversity of species.  I started studying field guides a few months later. When I turned to the Scissortail Flycatcher  page, I experienced a gut wrenching deja vu.  Is this the bird we saw back in May? *

The possible missed tick has haunted me through the years. In fact, this spectacular member of the Tyrannidae family has never been captured in the barrels of my binoculars. Until yesterday!

My early morning e-mail perusal sparked an impromptu trip to the Bombay Hook area of Delaware. The Scissortail Flycatcher was found immediately sitting eye-level on a dead tree less than 20 feet from the car, a beautiful bird despite the bill deformity.

As always, Daddy’s lifer was cause for celebration. My daughter chose a special dinner destination and asked to invite her cousin for the party. Dinner conversation included the bird of honor along with other species of the day including American Avocet, Black-necked Stilt, and Blue Grosbeak.

Throughout dinner, the girls gazed at the birds in the field guide. “They’re really pretty!”

* By the way, I just checked the NJ Audubon archives. Scissortail Flycatcher was recorded in Cape May County that weekend! Oh well, today’s bird put the check on my list.

My brother crashed our family’s Cape May vacation several years ago. Although having a curiosity of the natural world, he definitely is not a birder or naturalist of any sort. Hoping that a morning at fall migration’s East Coast epicenter could be the experience to recruit him, I told him to be ready for a predawn wake up.

The next morning, the trails at Higbee’s Beach holds an attractive assortment of warblers. Yellows, black-and-whites, American Redstarts, and black-throated blues are among the easiest for the rookie to find in his borrowed binoculars. However, it is the Sharp-shinned Hawks coursing over and diving through the trees that excite him more with each passing attempt at breakfast. 

Entering the second field, a nice pocket of birds foraging in overdrive grabs our attention, as well as that of several birders nearby. The avidiversity roll call echoed through the group – “black-throated green. Baltimore Oriole. Blue-grey Gnatcatcher. redstart. Yellow-billed Cuckoo, through the trees.”

After several minutes of the play-by-play, my bins land on something different, something new, something really new.  Light belly, 2 wing bars, bluish-green on top. . .

“CERULEAN WARBLER!” escapes in a passionate whisper. Life Bird! Having never visited its breeding sites in NJ, it has taken me a few years to finally get a look at this adorable little bird. 

I guide my brother’s eyes to the right limb. He starts talking about the bluish bird with striped wings right on the end of the branch. 

En route back to the parking lot, I gush with excitement about the Cerulean Warbler. He hits me with an awkward stare, “no big deal. The little blue thing is so common that I saw it my first time out. But those hawks were friggin’ cool!”

I try in vain to explain the prize of a Cerluean Warbler. Resigning to his apathy I agree, “those sharpies were cool.”  We share our hawk hunting highlights for the rest of the ride home.

As birders, we take pride in spotting birds when civilians see only trees, water, or sky.  We can drive down the highway and rack up 20 species in ten miles. Sitting on the soccer field, the mixed kettle of hawks and vultures captivates our attention despite the home team’s last minute rally.  Even our most valiant efforts to point out these sights to the non-believers can fall short.

I can empathize with the avian deprived. 

Holding his hand down a wooded path, I am frequently jarred to a stop by my 1 year old son. “Buh – dada – buh” he grunts excitedly. Try as I may, I neither see any movement nor hear any sound. I scan the area for several minutes, paying extra atention in the direction of that tiny pointer finger, but still nothing.

Within our next few leaf crunching steps, out flushes a female cardinal from under a particularly thick rhododendron. He heralds the departure, “Buh – dada – buh!” This mini-drama has had many matinees with different species playing the lead role.

It’s amazing when those little eyes find birds hidden in the foliage before daddy.  I always chalk it up to his advantageous angle instead of my aging senses. The truth probably lies somewhere in between the two.  OK – I’ll concede that it’s leaning heavily towards the former.

Word of advice: Remember to mind what you say around little ones unless you’re OK hearing it from them!

Our young daughter, like most pre-schoolers, has a knack of regurgitating previously heard comments at the least appropriate times.  I’m sure many of us have looked for a hole to slouch into when their toddlers utter an expletive or unsavory comment in front of their in-laws, when they’re visiting our work, at church, or other such settings.  It happens to the best of us!

Fortunately, it also happens it positive ways!

On a migratory morning, I was walking through some local trails with my daughter on my shoulders. As we entered the woods, I started hearing chips above us. Naturally, I stopped in my tracks and started listening more carefully. Not wanting to disturb my daughter’s comfortable perch, I attempted to bring the birds a bit closer. My “Psshh, Psshhh, Pssshh!” barely carried through the emergent vegetation yet it pulled in several species of warbler. We happily continued on our way home.

Two months later, we return to those trails for the first time together since our warbler experience. With my daughter on my shoulders again, I enter the wooded section of the park.  Within seconds, I hear birds overhead very quietly warning their nesting neighbors to take cover. The sound is vaguely familiar but not quite recognizable to species.

Unable to locate this very close bird, I gently put her down and scan through the fully leafed canopy. Suddenly, I hear the bird again. It’s on the ground now?!

There is my 1 year old daughter looking up at me, pishing her heart out.

Last weekend, I took my daughter for an easy birding tour around a rural area close to home. A small congregation of shorebirds in a slightly flooded field tickled her. She enjoyed talking about the “big” and “small” yellowlegs! Her scope skills are have come along way.

After seeing her first Indigo Bunting, she was inspired to draw some birds of the day. Her depiction of the INBU on pink Hello Kitty notebook paper is adorable! Good thing we had crayons in the car for her impromptu field drawing.

Once we got home, she eagerly shared our trip list with mommy and her little brother.  Eagles, killdeer, wood ducks, little blue herons, and the INBU appeared to be among her favorites.  Naturally, the horses, cows, and foxes were exciting too!

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