The Herring takes the cake!

After driving through pouring rains, wind swept soggy roads and blurry fogs, Cape May was finally in sight after midnight. Bright sunshine, brisk blustery winds and biting cold welcomed us the following morning. We combed ebird alerts and hourly updates for any snowy owl sightings over hot tea and oatmeal. There had been sightings in recent days at Nummy Island, Stone Harbor and Forsyth, so off we drove, hoping this would be the day.

Between the toll and the free bridges on Nummy island, we trained our binoculars on the landscape: a person carrying a rifle at 2:00, a white bucket at 5:00, a large flock of Brants in the bay, diving ducks on the right, but no owl.

Despite spending 2 days of scouring the tidal bays and meadows from the car, visiting Nummy Island twice and driving through the Forsyth Wildlife Drive and chatting with other birders, we didn't catch a glimpse of a snowy owl, but we did enjoy many other amazing sights, including:

soaring birds

beautiful ice creations

ice filled landscapes

and numerous birds,

including an immature common loon, long tailed ducks in winter plumage, american black ducks, 100's of brant geese, a northern harrier, a peregrine falcon, northern pintails,

common merganser and even a bufflehead. 

But the bird who took the cake and a show bird at that, was 

a Herring Gull. 

As we drove along Forsyth Wildlife Drive, a gull suddenly landed abruptly right in front of our car. 

We stopped in the nick of time and then he began his show.  

He had a large oyster and 

flew up above us about 6 to 8 feet 

 then dropped it onto the road, over and over.

After just 3 times, success!

After gobbling it down, off he flew, 

leaving us in wonder and delight to take in the late afternoon rays

 for a memorable weekend, after all.

The Quest for the Snowy Owl Continues

After checking various blogs and calling several NWRs, we drove 50 minutes from Cape May to Forsythe NWR last weekend, January 18th, as a Snowy Owl had been sited that morning on the 8-mile Wildlife Drive, right at the first curve. There had been even one the day before spotted on the roof of the headquarters there. This is where most of the owls have been spotted and
I hoped we would be lucky.

It was our first visit to Forsythe and it was amazing with an expansive sky view, rich feeding and nesting areas and about 1,500 acres of fresh/brackish water marsh habitat created by a dike system that can be manipulated depending on the seasons, not to mention 5,000 acres of woodlands and 46,000 acres total.

I shot anything that was white, just in case . .

After we drove the first 5 miles or so, my heart started to sink, but then our attention was drawn to the 1000's of snow geese taking off and their undulating flight patterns . . .

for them to then just settle down again a few meters away . . .

This Peregrine Falcon got the most of attention at the time we drove through, with many stopping to take shots. A Snowy Owl had been spotted in the same location just a day before.

And at the end of the drive was a pair of Common Pintail . . 

The closest I'm going to get to a Snowy Owl this year is this lovely print I found at the West End Garage in West Cape May. 

Perhaps, I will have better luck next year. According to Clay and Pat Sutton's Birds and Birding at Cape May, Snowy Owls can be seen in the area annually. (page 150-151)

During the quest, I learned more about how to access more current information through Twitter and sites listed on the right column of my blog under Useful Birding Links, which I will continue to add to. Project SNOWstorm is especially worth a peak, as transmitters were attached to several owls to track their movements and the findings are exciting.

Quest for the Snowy Owl

(pic from birdsource.org)

Starting in mid November, numerous Snowy Owls have been spotted through out the United States, beyond their usual habitat in the Arctic, including as far south now as Jacksonville, Florida. This is not that unusual an occurrence and can be caused by increased numbers or lack of food.

What is unusual, though, is the numbers of owls reported with over 3400 spotted in the US thus far, with the spike beginning November 15 from 0 to over 2400 and then beyond. Pete Dunne stated that over 20 had been seen in NJ during this irruption up to the end of December.

Please see the ebird site for the range map through the end of
December of 2013:
http://ebird.org/ebird/map/snoowl1?bmo=1&emo=12&byr=2013&eyr=2014&gp=true

and explore the data yourself:

http://ebird.org/ebird/GuideMe?src=changeDate&speciesCodes=snoowl1&getLocations=northAmerica&reportType=species&monthRadio=on&bMonth=01&eMonth=12&bYear=2013&eYear=2014&continue.x=38&continue.y=4&continue=Continue

This is all very exciting and we had hoped to see one for ourselves last weekend. An owl had been spotted at the Cape May Point State Park on the dune, but was gone when we arrived.

The next day, we visited the 2 mile beach at the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge,

where another owl had been spending some time, but again with no luck, but the NWR was new for us and an excellent place to explore more.