2006 New Jersey World Series of Birding, 13 May 2006
Bushnell-Smithsonian Capital Kingbirds: An account of our day
Four top birders (Jay Withgott, Tim Janzen, Scott Sillett, and Gregory Gough) joined forces to compete in the World Series of Birding in New Jersey, a competition to see which team can find the most different kinds of birds in 24 hours.
Preparation for the event began months earlier and was aided greatly by the sponsorship of Bushnell Optics, who donated optics, gear, and covered expenses, and Land Rover of Alexandria, who donated vehicles for the event.
The effort was also aided by a week of intense scouting performed by the team and researchers Terry Chesser, Carla Dove, Chris Milensky, Mike Braun, and many others.
Mike Braun, team manager, prepares to scout in New Jersey.
The Great Swamp
On the long drive to our first stop, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, the only veteran from previous years, Jay Withgott, plans
the upcoming whirlwind of stops with Tim Janzen, our big day ringer from Oregon, before taking a well-deserved rest.
We arrive at the swamp a few minutes after midnight and most of the other teams are esconced on a narrow dyke by a vast wetland. The full moon is poking through the fog and creating a beautiful halo effect. Our first bird is heard as soon as we open the Land Rover's doors, a nasal "peeent" of a courting woodcock.
We're hoping to hear bitterns, but they, and many other marsh birds often found here, elude us. We try some more stops throughout the swamp, and pick up barred owl and king rail, among more common species. Unfortunately, it becomes obvious that the nocturnal migration of birds is just not happening, we had counted on identifying many species of birds by the calls they utter as they migrate overhead.
A hoped for bird is a great horned owl, and we think we hear one but the cadence just isn't right, the hoots are fewer and not grouped together. Our western bird expert, Tim Janzen, is the first to identify our mysterious owl, a long-eared, and a real prize for the count.
Despite our sweet bird, we leave for northwestern New Jersey at 2:30 with many holes in our list.
Night Birding in Sussex
The first few stops are at more marshes where we hope to find some of the birds we missed in the Great Swamp. The wee hours of the morning are cool, foggy, and silent, but finally we pick up moorhen and virginia rail, but still lack sora and both bitterns. We're running just a little late, and drive quickly to get to our first stop in the grasslands.
Grassland Loop
The birds of the open country are often the first to vocalize in the morning, and we tromp up a dirt trail to the top of a long hill
as day begins. Our target birds are 3 sparrows: vesper, savannah, and grasshopper.
We easily hear the vesper on the walk up and the savannah is singing at the top of the hill, but the grasshopper sparrow eludes us; so we'll have to try other stops to find it.
Pheasants utter their loud cries but turkeys are quiet, and will be missed for the day.
We drive along the bucolic farm roads of Sussex County at a rapid pace stopping at sites that were productive during the week of scouting and find meadowlark and bobolink but the kestrel won't come out of its nest box and the thrashers won't sing. We're far behind the other teams now and need to rush to get back on schedule.
High Point State Park
Our first stop is a tower with an active raven nest, a parent acknowledges our arrival with a hoarse croak. Another key bird here is
a pair of dark-eyed juncos, but they elude us.
A quick loop through the Sawmill Campground yields a Cooper's hawk sitting on a nest and a yellow-bellied sapsucker.
We finally get to stretch our legs with a run to the back side of Cat Swamp where we hear canada warbler, northern waterthrush, brown creeper and least flycatcher.
Culvers Lake
It doesn't appear to be much of a day for finding migratory birds, but one small patch of woods by the lake has an interesting troupe of birds. Tim spots a bay-breasted warbler, a bird he has never seen before. Also in this flock are blackpoll and wilson's warblers.
The lake itself has a lone common loon on it, a holdover from a dozen birds that dropped in during the week. Also nice are a distant pair of ring-necked ducks that Jay spots.
Stokes State Forest
Another campground is also a birdy spot as we find magnolia warbler, red-breasted nuthatch, black-capped chickadee as we search the
evergreens by the camp sites.
We wind our way southwards picking up new birds for the day with regularity, but we've fallen quite far behind the other teams so we reach a collective decision to skip some moderately productive spots along the Delaware River and head straight for the Cape May area.
Stone Harbor
The coastal marshes by Stone Harbor are so different in habitat from where we've been that we quickly pile on the new birds: laughing gull, little blue heron, shorebirds, and boat-tailed grackle.
A quick jog through the dunes to Stone Harbor Point gets us a piping plover, a cute little shorebird that nests on the beach.
Cape May
Cape May is one of the most famous birdwatching areas in the world but it's getting late and we have time for only a few stops.
We haven't birded the ocean yet so we stop at a few jetties for purple sandpiper and scan the ocean for northern gannet.
There's been a white-winged dove coming to a feeder in Cape May but we don't find it, after the count, we discover it was last seen the day before.
We zip up the bayside of the Cape May peninsula and make a short stop for the hummingbirds at the Cape May Bird Observatory in Goshen.
Cumberland County
The sun is fading fast as pull into our prime shorebirding location, the birds are there, thousands of them, and somewhere among the common species are curlew and white-rumped sandpipers, but we have no time to pore through the vast flock, it's on to our dusk spot.
Turkey Point
The observation tower at Turkey Point is surrounded by extensive coastal marshes. It's a nice place to end the day and we are serenaded by
distant chuck-will's-widows and whip-poor-wills. We make a half-hearted attempt in the nearby woods for screech owl, but it starts to
drizzle and we opt to hurry back to Cape May to turn in our results.
Our final total is 178 species, good enough for 12th place, but far behind the winner, Cornell, with 229 species. We did great for a team with 3 rookie members who are new to birding in New Jersey and the World Series. We gained valuable experience with the routes and will be in excellent position next year to get 200+ species. And, we had fun!
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