Bird Watching at Cape May Point State Park, Avalon Seawatch and Brigantine NWR

May Lee

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Hawk Watch at Cape May Point State Park
Avalon Sea Watch &
Edwin B. Forsythe Nat. Wildlife Refuge
on 10/16/10

October 16th 2010 was forecasted to be a cloudy and windy day. But weekend in Cape May Point
always have lots of programs to attend. So we drove down the Garden State Parkway to the
southern end of New Jersey, Cape May Point State Park. On a large, several tiered platform,
there are many people with their binoculars or spotting scopes, following the announcer's direction,
watching the hawks flying south, some came by the platform area and fly overhead, most gone off
different direction. Some Northern Harrier came down to the marsh try to make a catch. Some
ospray try to make a catch in the pond in front of the platform. They are so fast and hard to catch
with camera. I really admire the ability of the naturalist to announce the name of some 20 speciese
of hawks within a second. It was a long day on your feet and alert all the time.

It was a windy day, some expert said the wind tends to force the hawks to fly low so it will be
easier to observe. Except 10/14 being rainy it has been good days all during the week, so for day's
hawk total for 10/12, 10/13, 10/14, 10/15 were 774, 863, 101, and 514. No wonder the call of
hawks were almost nonstop during the couple noon hours were there. Day's hawk total of 10/16
was 1014. The break down was below.

Cape May
Cape May Point, New Jersey, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 16, 2010
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Species            Day's Count    Month Total   Season Total
------------------ ----------- -------------- --------------
Black Vulture                4               57            103
Turkey Vulture            34             321            519
Osprey                        34           1641           4382
Bald Eagle                     9            160            336
Northern Harrier           13            558           1029
Sharp-shinned Hawk 409           7803          13023
Cooper's Hawk             85           1867           2751
Northern Goshawk             0              0              0
Red-shouldered Hawk       0             22             27
Broad-winged Hawk         1            692           1145
Red-tailed Hawk              8            107            246
Rough-legged Hawk            0              0              0
Golden Eagle                 0              0              0
American Kestrel         296           1892           4691
Merlin                            95            961           1782
Peregrine Falcon          26            872           1149
Unknown Accipiter            0              0              0
Unknown Buteo                0              0              0
Unknown Falcon               0              0              1
Unknown Eagle                0              0              0
Unknown Raptor               0              0              0

Total:                    1014          16953          31184
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The most frequent names I heard were
Merlin and American Kestrel. A white
rump is the ID for Northern Harrier.

The buff underside and square tail
was for Sharp-shinned Hawk. It was
high on the hawk count that day.

In the Pond in the northwest part of the Cape May Point SP, There was a school of American Wigeon.
This is the first time I see so many together. Before I saw them mixed in with American Coot.

Four Mute Swans graced the pond in front of the Hawk watch platform.

Besides birds, Monarch Butterfly migrate also, They spent the year moving north from Texas, reproducing
one cycle per month, until the weather cools and food becomes less plentyful, The super stage Marnarch
in the eastern America, fly through the Mexican Gulf and over winter on the evergreens to the east of
Mexico City. Thousands of them "chill out" there until spring they fly through the gulf to Texas where
milkweeds are available there they start laying their first eggs and die off. The young go through 4 molts
and pupate into a green chrysalis, from which a new butterfly Monarch emerge. One cycle takes 1 month
living on milkweed exclusively. Next year I won't weed out my milkweed, hopefully I can see some
reproducing Monarchs. The last cycle of the year is the super cycle, they live 8 months to over winter.

The above is a male Monarch, It has two scent glands, the oval spots, on each of his Hind wings. That's
where pheranomes were produced. Females do not have them. For garden plants butterflies likes to eat,
visit: http://www.thebutterflysite.com/butterfly-food.shtml

The the west of Cape May Point SP there is a traffic circle, there are butterfly bushes and other flowers
attractive to butterflies and is a good place to photograph them. I attended the Manarch Butterfly tagging
demo. The actual serial tag, and notes associate with the tagged Monarch. The person catch a tagged
Monarch and reported through email or phone will get a reward of 50 pesos in Mexico, about 5 dollars.

Use a eraser to remove some scale
on the ventral side. Apply a self-stick
tag and it is tagged.

A Tagged Butterfly was ready to be released. This female Monarch took a couple seconds before it
took off. It stopped at the pine 10 feet away to rest up for several minutes before it flew away.

a Least Skipper at
the circle.

At Avalon,exit 13 GSP, three young men were in
charge of the Seawatch of waterbirds. They use
mostly spotting scopes, less binoculars and a bunch of
counters to keep track of the Sea birds spotted.

The left is the score board for 10/15/10. Below are the
counters they use to keep count.

We saw a bird robbery while at Avalon Seawatch. The gull below just caught a fish from the sea,
another gull dove down to attack. The first one dropped his fish and the second picked it up and flew off.

There were some daylight left when we head north. So we stopped at Brigantine.