birdsoup

I haven’t posted any birding news for a while because, well, I have actually been birding.  I joined a group from Saw Mill River Audubon for a coastal birding trip to Delaware and New Jersey.  We hit the birding hot spots along Delaware Bay and the Atlantic coast including Bombay Hook NWR, Prime Hook NWR, Cape May, and Brigatine NWR.

Our group racked up a total of 131 species.  However, sheer numbers don’t do justice to the trip.  Although I didn’t know most of the 14 participants before the trip we were all friends by the end – a really nice group.  And as this photo shows we were very good at pointing out rare birds.  We enjoyed birding, travelling and dining together.

This was my first overnight organized birding trip (except for one I led to Cape May many years ago).  Of course, the primary purpose of the trip was to view birds.  And we did.  I saw maybe 75% all the birds seen by the whole group.  That was nice.  The trip also represented a change of pace, a chance to get away from daily life and do something different.

I won’t bore you with a laundry list of all the bird I saw, but here are some of the highlights:

1. Osprey love fish and are good at catching them.  Bald Eagles also love fish.  I have often read that after an Osprey catches a fish and is flying toward a branch to perch and eat it, an eagle will harass the Osprey hoping it will drop the fish and eagle can swoop down and eat the fish itself.  I’ve never seen this behavior – until this trip.  An eagle tried bullying an Osprey for 5 minutes but the Osprey held onto its fish.  But eventually the Osprey did let go of the fish, much to the delight of the eagle.  A cool behavior to observe.
2. We tallied 9 species of raptors:  N. Harrier, Kestrel, Merlin, Coopers Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Peregrine
3. We arranged a visit to a raptor-banding site in Cape May, where they capture raptors, weigh and measure them, place an ID band on their legs, and then release them.  They save 3 recently captured birds ( a Coopers Hawk and two N. Harriers )  We got good close-up looks and then watch the released bird fly away.

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/sueorourke/8070647511/

           I was amazed that a bird in hand is not as large as it appears in flight.

     4.  For the trip I added 31 species to my bird list for 2012.  Most of all I enjoyed seeing some old favorites that I haven’t seen in 5-10 years, including Meadowlark, Avocet, Brown Thrasher, and Pintail duck

All-in-all it was a successful trip on many levels.