i've been very busy

I've been busy with Cape May Raptor Banding Project this month. I haven't had time to post, i'll try to post a bit more frequently.

A Sharpie and a Few Merlins

A sharpie on it's back.


The cost of handling falcons.

Today there were not many hawks flying, a few kestrels, couple sharpies, and afew merlins.
We caught 1 sharpie and 3 merlins. I think tomorrow will be better and Monday should be great.

The One That Almost Got Away

This is one of the red-tails from last week. It seem like it took 20 minutes to get this bird in the can.

Maintance Day at the Blind

Today's weather was predicted to be 80% rain.
On my way to the Point on the bus and the walk form the drop off stop to the blind it was spitting. I opened the station for about an hour and a half then it started to rain.
Mandy, Sam, and I went to a horse barn to catch sparrows for the project, we caught 12. Rainy,drizzly weather is a good time to get sparrows, they stay in the barn. After that we went back to the blind and decided to cut the grass around the station. The grass was getting a bit long, a couple of the traps were hard to see. We didn't catch any birds today.

Best Day Yet in the Blind

Today we caught 14 raptors. This is our best day yet.
The species were Kestrel, Merlin, Sharp-shinned, Copper, and Red-tailed.
Total for the project are on Cape May Raptor Banding Project website - http://capemayraptors.org/

Mamdy caught her first merlin today in the mist net, a nice HY(Hatch Year) female. W got our first adult red-tail, SY(second Year). This red-tail had a very light tail, some white on the outer part of the tail and near the base. Mandy took a few photos of it.
I'm off to bed, 4:45am comes early.

Cape May Coyote!!!

Today at 11am, while Mandy and I were sitting in the blind wishing that a raptor would fly near enough to catch Mandy spotted a really cool animal - a coyote!!! I thought that all the Cape May coyotes had been removed from the island. It's nice that there is still one left.

Raptor banding has started at Cape May Point

I've started banding for Cape May Raptor Banding Project (CMRBP) on Monday, August 31st.
This is what I've caught August 31: 2 Cooper hawks

Sept. 1: 2 Cooper hawks
2 Red-tailed hawks

Sept. 2: no birds
The season started out good, but today the wind was not in our favor(NE-E). Tomorrow may not be any better, weather well be the same.
Today we(Sam,Mandy,and myself) set up the mist nets in a "L".
Mandy is the field tech for the project this season.

Atlantic City Air Show

US Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds
US Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds
US Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds
US Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds
US Air Force F-16 Thunderbirds

Free-fall - US Army Golden Knights Parachute Team Jump



The air show was yesterday, A really good show. I took over 900 photos. I rode the bus up to AC from Del haven, that was the way to go. Traffic was bumper to bumper from the parkway to the bus terminal. I heard that the city was excepting 700,000 people for the air show. The show ran from 10am to nearly 4pm.

I'm up for the Fall

I came up to New Jersey on Tuesday 18th to Band hawks for the fall(Sept. - Nov.) at Cape May Point. I flew up on SpriritAir, the flight was ok but the landings were a bit rough- new pilot i guess. I'm planning on posting what hawks I've caught with photos.

Project Perch Part II

Here are a few photos of the new home onwers and putting up the guardrails around the burrows.

Project Perch

Last Tuesday, the 4th and yesterday, the 11th I helped Project Perch dig burrows and put up gaurd rails for Burrowing owls at Driftwood Middle school.
Kelly Heffernan started Project Perch to help Burrowing Owls, and educate the public by working with students and schools in Broward county, fl.
There was great news yesterday, one of the burrows that we dug last week had two Owls at the entrance. Driftwood middle has had owls at the school before.

Dinner Time

The oriole family came by again at the normal time, around 3-4pm. The two adults were busy as usual getting worms for their kid(Bronzed Cowbird). They left an hour later but were back just before 7pm. This time I was able to get the money shot - the actual feeding!!!

A visional impairment

This morning the Orioles were getting worms for their adopted kid. I took a few more photos of them.
I noticed this morning one of the parents has a cloudy eye, a cataract in the right eye. This doesn't seem to slow it down. Unfortunately birds like this don't last long. They don't see the hawk, car, cat, etc. coming until it's too late.

Life of a parent - brood-parasitism

Searching....
Got a worm!

Forever hungry

Yesterday and today a pair of Spot-Breasted Orioles have been accompanied by their adopted kid (cowbird, most likely Bronzed). The parents have been very busy collecting little green worms that they are getting from the underside of leaves in the trees and brushes. Occasionally the adults have been eating mango from the neighbors' tree.
♦
Cowbirds are one of the species that are brood parasites. This means they will remove a host egg when they lay one of their own in a nest. This can happen either in the same visit to the host nest or in a separate visit before or after the parasitism. This both prevents the host species from realizing their nest has been parasitized and reduces competition for the parasitic nestling once it hatches.

A Morning Flyby

This morning I was having a mug of coffee and watching the news in my room. My room is small, one wall is a sliding glass door(about 6 foot wide). In the morning I also watch the wildlife, birds, lizards, mammals, etc. This morning was especially good, a Short-tailed hawk flew by. I guess it was looking for breakfast. This Short-tailed was a adult light morph.
There are two morphs, light and dark. Dark morphs comprise around 75% of the Florida population(Brain Wheeler-raptors of Eastern NA)

STS127 lift off

Space shuttle Endeavour
The solid booster rockets separating from shuttle (click on image)

Space shuttle Endeavour finally took flight. After several days of delays, mostly weather related she took off. I went down to the Dania Beach pier in hope of getting a couple photos of the shuttle. A gentleman was on his phone and said to me 'it has taken off'. Probably a minute later we saw the shuttle cutting the blue with it's white plume.
A really cool sight!!!
I didn't think I would be able to get an image of the boosters leaving the shuttle at that distance. Kennedy Space Center is about 180 miles from the pier.

Mango tree is bird magnet

Spot-Breasted Oriole
Spot-Breasted Oriole eating mango

Today the neighbors' mango tree was a bird magnet. I have never seen birds eat mango, but today I watched a Mockingbird, Spot-Breasted Oriole, and Blue Jay eat mangoes from the same tree. There was also a Loggerhead Shrike that visited the tree also, which the mockingbird was not too happy about.

Unusual Clouds

A storm was moving in from the west this evening and it had unusual colored clouds on the front edge. These photos are untouched.

Steamy, hot day at Anne Kolb Park

Green Heron

Fiddler Crab
.Little Blue Heron
I spent a few hours at Anne Kolb Park today at the end of the Mud Flat Trail. Unfortunately the Lake Observation Trail was closed and will remain closed for a few more weeks because the park is having the roofing replaced on several buildings. The South, fishing Pier and the Mud Flat Trails are still open.
I observed 10 species of birds: Little Blue Heron, Green Heron, White Ibis, Belted Kingfisher, Turkey and Black Vultures, Osprey, Magnificent Frigatebird, Crow, Red-winged Blackbird. There were plenty of fiddler crabs due to the tide going out.

Finally...

Curlytail Lizard

Toad
Close-up of toad's back


I finally got a photo of a curlytail with it's tail curled up this morning. They curl their tail when they run.

Late last night I was able to photograph the toad also. I'm not sure what kind of toad it is, if you know write a comment. I wish it would have been facing me. Although the back is really cool looking.

Backyard lizards

Brown Anole
Curlytail Lizard
Knight Anole



This week I've been a little under the weather. So it's been mostly backyard birding and such for me.
I noticed this week that the reptilian inhabitance have been quite active in the yard. The species that I have observed were Brown Anoles, Curlytail Lizards, Knight Anoles and a toad.

The brown anoles are all over. There is one BA that is very tame, I think it is a female. BA are 5" to 8" long, body length of 2.5"

Curlytail are cool in that when they run they hold up their tail in the air and curled. The one that I see here lays on a platform on the tree, as if it is surveying the lay of the land. Curlytails are about 7" to 10" long, with the body only around 4" long.

Knight Anoles seem to live in the tree in the daytime, I see them climbing up the tree in the morning. I have also watched them walk across the grass from the other side of the yard. KA are the largest lizards I've seen in the yard. KA measure about 13" to 19" long, with a body length of no more than 7" long.

I haven't taken any photos of the toad yet. It usually comes out at night and sometimes when it downpours.

Natures' Fireworks

Around 11pm, Monday, the 25th

The last few days the skies has been giving us light shows....day and night.
I haven't been out birding this week due to the weather, it's rained 11 days straight now(I've only had a bicycle to get around, but yesterday I bought a used car, I should be able to go birding again).

Rainy season has started

I haven't been birding much the last week, except for from my room. We've been having rain/showers. When I go birding I take a backpack of birding and photographic gear which doesn't mix well with rain.
I have been biking around town though, an average of 20 miles a day. I will atleast be in shape when I go birding.
Rain in south Florida is different than the northeast. It can be raining buckets on one side of the road and be dry across the street or the sun can be shining while it is raining. As I'm typing this it is raining hard but the sun is shining in the yard, the makings of rainbows. We also get waterspouts this time of year. We are in a bad drought here, around 13 inches below what it should be.

Update: At about 9:55am there was a waterspout spotted 5 miles E of Surfside, between Miami and Hollywood moving NW.

My week at Cape May and WSB

It was a great week at Cape May. I was able to spend some time with the family, not as much as I would have like to. Sadly, I didn't go birding nearly as much as I wanted to. I did get to see lots of my birding friends from Cape May and around the country. I also meant some cool people from other areas of the country and one guy from the UK. He was on the team, 1000bird.com.
The The WSB was on May 9th from 00:00 to 23:59. WSB went great.
The weather held out, it only rained early morning and around 7pm, at least at the finish line at the West Cape May fire hall.
The cumulative species total was 269, that in 24 hour in NJ. there was about 77 competitive teams and about 15 non-competitive. the youth teams did really great!
The top youth teams:
Grades1-5 had 117 species.
Grades6-8 had 158 species.
Grades9-12 had 215 species.
I m hoping to get a team from south Florida to compete in the WSB next year. I think I would like to do Cape island which is south of the canal. The winning team for this category had a total of 151 species. A couple highlights of the WSB were Swallow-tailed and Mississippi kites. I didn't see the Swallow-tailed but did see the Mississippi, two in fact that flew over our heads nice and low.