I made a big detour on my way to work this morning by going out to the town of West Windsor. What drew me here was the Crested Caracara that has been first reported on Saturday afternoon. I could not get free on Sunday, so this morning had to do. I arrived at 8:00 and saw the bird straight away & then it flew up on top of a pole where it stayed about 15 minutes. Afterwards it took a long circular flight around the field and then went down below a slope and out of sight for me. On my way back towards work I enjoyed thinking that this may be the first accepted record of this species in New Jersey. The prevailing logic at this time is that the bird was chased out of it's normal southern range by last week's Hurricane Issac, which had first hit the New Orleans coast and then as a Tropical Storm had traveled up into the Central US.
click to enlarge
Here's a quick digi-scope I managed.
Here are several folks wonderful shots of this rarity
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1147647
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffamy/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgalick/7966980354/in/pool-ebird
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bonxie88/7959454124/in/pool-ebird
