Modest Birding Milestone

This weekend, after 1 year 7 months & 20 days, we saw our 200th life bird – the Eurasian Collard Dove (which may be common where you are, but not so much in Cape May, NJ). We saw all three that have been hanging around town recently.  It was a great weekend, despite rain on Saturday and generally overcast skies the rest of the time.  We clocked about 17 hours in all and were rewarded with 75 birds (76 if you count the Guinea Fowl we saw on the road; 76 if you count the roosters that also wandered onto the road). Included were a dozen Glossy Ibises, a half-dozen Snowy Egrets, an adult American Bald Eagle, a Northern Harrier, several Red-Headed Woodpeckers (a target bird for us, and our 201st lifer), a dozen+ Ring Necked Ducks (our 202nd lifer), the first Chipping Sparrows of spring, and some other new birds for us: Northern Gannet, Black Scoter, Red Breasted Merganser, and Red Throated Loon. Lots of Yellow Rumped Warblers, of course. The Piping Plovers were active along with the Sanderlings. In all, we had lots of fun and our feet are tired.

And now for some pics.  As always, you can click them once or twice to enlarge them.

First up, our #200 – the Eurasian Collard Dove:

And our most recent “most wanted” – the Red Headed Woodpecker:

(I’ll have some more pics of this bird and his friends soon…).

How about a Red Throated Loon?

(There’ll be some more of this one, too.)

You know I like the Red Tailed Hawks. Here’s a nice one:

A Piping Plover:

How about a creepy Northern Mockingbird?

(I actually like the Mockingbirds a lot, but this one…yikes!)

This Great Egret is a bit more pleasantly situated:

Here’s a flock of Glossy Ibises:

A Great Black Backed Gull:

Northern Gannet:

American Coot:

American Oystercatchers:

Brown Thrasher:

Mute Swan, up close and personal:

Northern Harrier:

What’s this thing doing here? (Guinea Fowl)

Two pairs of male & female Ring Necked Ducks:

The first (more or less) Snowy Egrets of spring:

I named this Tree Swallow “Thomas Nagel,” as the bird is clearly wondering, “What is it like to be a bat?” (pdf):

(Pardon the philosophy reference….)

Okay, one more. Since we’ve been wanting to see a Red Headed Woodpecker for so long, here’s how we saw it for the first time:

I’ll post some more pics in the near future.

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New Bird Pics

Some from around here, and some from our recent trip to Florida.

First up, the Carolina Wren:

Belted Kingfishers in flight:

A Red-Tailed Hawk overhead:

A Wood Duck on the pond at Okehocking:

And, for you non-birders, a chipmunk, just for fun:

And from Florida, a Common Moorhen (or Common Gallinule):

A Black-Crowned Night Heron:

And a Palm Warbler:

From our walk in Tyler Arboretum this morning

It was a chilly but beautiful morning for a walk in the fields and woods of Tyler Arboretum. Not too much was stirring, but there were a few of our friends about.  Here’s a little fox:

This one decided to have a nap in a nice warm spot of sun:

And this Red Tailed Hawk kept watch in the woods:

Turkey Vultures

Perhaps they don’t get one feeling all warm and fuzzy, but TV’s are fairly magnificent in their own way.  They are not raptors like hawks and eagles (they are more like storks), but are always included in raptor migration counts.  At least around where I live, they are very common year round.  They can be a bit, shall we say, disgusting (check out their defense mechanism).  But I like them.

Here are a couple of shots I took at the Okehocking Nature Preserve (click for a full-sized view):