May 27 & 28 - Hatteras Pelagics

I was able to cross off an item from my Birder's Bucket-List by finally getting down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, specifically the island of Cape Hatteras.
My first scheduled boat trip was cancelled due to strong winds coming from the West.  I was able to re-schedule and thus went two straight days !

Unfortunately for me the strong westerlies had blown all of the deep-water specialty birds further east and away from the Gulf Stream. Nevertheless I did manage one life bird in the Black-Capped Petrel.
We saw dozens of these birds, and at quite close range over the two days.

Other species seen were Sooty Shearwaters, Cory's Shearwaters, Audubon's Shearwaters, Wilson's Storm-Petrels, and several Band-Rumped Storm-Petrels.

So, it was not quite the adventure I had hoped for, but the one that I had expected.  The open ocean of the Gulf Stream that is 30-miles offshore is rather like a liquid-desert.  There's a lot of territory between where you are & where the birds are...

Band-Rumped Petrels:

Sooty Shearwater:

Black-Capped Petrel:

Audubon's Shearwater

May 6 -Veni, Vidi, Vici !

Avenged !   Following my miss of New Jersey's First State Record of the species of Little Egret on April 28, the bird was re-found once again visiting Heislerville WMA on Thursday evening and was then reported again on Friday (yesterday)..So my friends and I decided to give this bird another try.

We began our morning at the relatively nearby to Heislerville birding area of Belleplain State Forest. Here we sought out and found the specialty of this forest, the Yellow-Throated Warbler.  We heard, but did not see a Prothonotary Warbler...

Next we moved onto Heislerville WMA and found there to be quite a gale blowing. We also heard that the Little Egret was seen moments ago and had flown into the marsh.  We then drove up on the dirt road separating the tidal impoundment & the marsh and we connected with the bird !!

credit Bob Brown


This species is my 648th official ABA-species !!