My 2014 World Series of Birding Report

Images © Todd Klein.

The goal: see or hear and tally as many bird species as possible between midnight and midnight of Saturday, May 10th to raise funds for the New Jersey Audubon Society’s Cape May Bird Observatory to be used for nature education, research, stewardship and preservation.

Our team: The CMBO Century Run; 22 members including team leaders Mike Crewe and Megan Edwards, and additional leaders Roger and Kathy Horn and Karl Lukens, traveling Cape May County in two rented vans, as well as parts of it on foot.

Our day began at 5 AM in The Nature Conservancy’s Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge on Sunset Avenue in Cape May Point, known to birders as “The Meadows.” The dark sky was cloudy, there was a light wind from the southwest, cool but not unpleasant. As we walked the trail waiting for first light, we began counting birds we heard and could identify by their calls, with Tree Swallows being the first species on the list closely followed by Common Yellowthroat Warblers, Carolina Wrens and Red-Winged Blackbirds. Participants ranged from veterans like Ellen and myself to a man who was a newbie birder, this being his second time birding ever. Nearly every bird he saw was new to him!

As morning light grew we stood atop the dune crossover at The Meadows scanning for birds on the beach and in the ocean, adding more species to our list. At the beginning of the day, it all seems so easy, with new species turning up on all sides, and the list growing by the minute. Leader Mike Crew, with his scope, is pointing out a Northern Gannet flying over the waves.

On World Series day, they all count equally, from Mute Swan, a species disliked by many birders because the swans chase other birds off all the ponds…

…to favorites of birders and non-birders like Snowy Egret, fishing in shallow water by wriggling his bright yellow feet to attract minnows…

…to tiny Least Sandpiper, here coming remarkably close to us as we watched him.

Despite a forecast of rain, the day’s weather turned out to be nearly ideal. Cloudy much of the day with a few brief light showers that bothered neither us nor the birds, and occasional moments of sun as above. The light southwest winds continued all day. On the minus side, clouds and some fog overnight probably kept new migrating birds from reaching the area, but on the other hand also kept existing migrants from leaving. A day with lots of sun would have given us a better chance to see hawks and other soaring birds, but we did get some anyway, and avoided sunburn and baking heat. The temperature began at around 60 degrees and got no warmer than the mid 70s, quite comfortable.

After The Meadows we headed to Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area where we added species like Yellow-Breasted Chat, above, Baltimore Oriole, Prairie Warbler and Yellow-Billed Cuckoo, always tough to find.  After a brief stop at the Cape May Point State Park for bathrooms and a few more species, we got in our two vans and headed north to Belleplain State Forest around 9 AM with 75 species on our list. A good start!

Ellen and I ended up in the rear of four rows of seats in the van driven ably by Roger Horn, with Kathy Horn next to him communicating with the other van by walkie-talkie. Getting back there was a squeeze and grew tiresome, but the van was comfortable and we had room for our stuff: extra clothes, a cooler full of food, and so on, so it worked out okay. Next year I’m going to find out who I have to bribe to get the second row, though… (kidding!)

We did well at Belleplain, picking up species like Eastern Phoebe, above, as well as expected nesting birds like Summer Tanager, Acadian Flycatcher, Hooded Warbler, Eastern Meadowlark and more.

Eastern Bluebird on the bluebird house at the state forest headquarters was an easy add, and there we also got Ruby-throated Hummingbird and White-breasted Nuthatch at their feeders. A reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer joined us there and tagged along for a few hours, preparing a story for today’s paper which I probably won’t see for a while.

The team prepares to walk a short trail in search of Blue-winged Warbler and Wood Thrush. Belleplain woods are full of ticks, but though we found a few crawling on us during the day, Ellen and I seem to have avoided any tick bites this year, an unusual bonus! By 12:15 PM we were ready to move on right after leader Mike Crewe spotted a rare Mississippi Kite soaring far overhead that made species 101 on our list. Our “century run” of at least 100 species was now official, but after the first 100 it gets progressively harder to find new ones for the list, and we had a long afternoon and evening ahead of us.

A visit to Beaver Dam Road gave us good looks at my favorite local nesting warbler, Prothonotary, seen here in a photo from the Wild Delmarva website, as well as Gull-billed Tern and Glossy Ibis.

The Philadelphia Inquirer photographer caught up with us here, he’s at the right trying to get a photo of the warbler. Lots harder than his usual subjects, I suspect he didn’t get one! After a few other brief stops we headed to the east side of the Cape May peninsula.

In Avalon, after a late lunch stop, we picked up Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron, above, as well as Black-Crowned and Piping Plover, and a few more. (Wish all the birds were as easy to photograph as this one!) By about 3 PM we were headed toward Nummy Island just southwest of Stone Harbor to look for more shore and sea birds with our tally at 114 species.

We did find some, including this handsome Surf Scoter, a sea duck, as well as shore birds like Dunlin, Black-bellied Plover and the threatened species Red Knot. After that we went back to the Cape May area for a second round of searching. All the easy ones were already on our list, and now it became a matter of picking up one here and two there. At the Cape May Bird Observatory’s Northwood Center we found American Goldfinch and Brown Thrasher, and driving by a pond near the State Park, Megan spotted a difficult to see Belted Kingfisher.

At the Cape May-Lewes ferry terminal just north of Higbee Beach we searched for and found Purple Sandpiper and Ruddy Turnstone.

At the Cape May County Airport we found the always reliable Horned Lark, the only place to find it in our county, and this year close enough for a good photo.

This distant Bald Eagle perched in a tree there was the third of the day, and more typical of looks we tend to get. At Miami Beach Road on Delaware Bay we finally found Ring-billed Gull, and at a pond in the town of Villas located a well-documented rarity, Red-Necked Grebe. It was now 6 PM and we were running out of daytime and out of species to look for. We headed back north toward Belleplain State Forest for another go there with 128 species on our list. We picked up a few more on the way, bringing our total to 133 species.

The second try at Belleplain was a complete bust, with nothing new added. Birds that should have been singing were quiet. Even leader Megan’s excellent Barred Owl imitation brought no response. It was very discouraging, but we had one more good place to try, Jake’s Landing Road just south of Belleplain, on the marsh leading to Delaware Bay. In the fading light we gradually picked up six more for the list! Seaside Sparrow and Marsh Wrens were easy, calling everywhere. Leaders Mike Crewe and his wife Megan Edwards were able to somehow tease out a few from the shadows: American Black Duck, Green-winged Teal, and Great Blue Heron flying far overhead, one that had eluded us all day. Finally, as darkness fell, Whip-poor-wills began calling in the woods for our final species of the day. We climbed one last time into the vans, weary but satisfied. We stopped three times at likely spots to listen for another night-caller, Chuck-will’s-widow, but heard none, so around 9:45 PM we returned to the parking lot and our cars at The Meadows, then most of us drove to the Grand Hotel in Cape May for the Finish Line.

We arrived at the Finish Line around 10 PM, weary and bleary, but the applause as we walked in was heartening. World Series of Birding officials were there going over the tallies of teams that had already arrived. The top teams of 74 total teams would not get there (or report in by fax) until just before midnight, but about twenty were there ahead of us, some with old friends among them.

Here are the tally boards I’d put together the previous week beginning to fill in with team totals. Ours is not there yet.

These are the trophies in various categories that were awarded to the winning teams at today’s Awards Brunch. We never go to that, but I do have some winners from the website. The Urner Stone Cup (center) for highest number of species, 218, went to the Cornell Redheads. Second and third place trophies went to UMLY Band of Birders with 208 species and YMOS Raucous Gulls with 203 species. I think those are all teams of younger birders covering the entire state, and good to see that new generation prospering and the tradition continuing! Other winners and complete team standings can be found HERE.

Our team enjoyed a hot meal while we went over our lists and compiled the official team tally of 139 species. Two better than last year, which is good, and almost at our target of at least 140. As always there were some that we think we should have gotten and didn’t. The complaint of “I had such-and-such here all last week!” was often heard during our big day. We ended up in the middle of the pack, as always, but are proud of our effort all the same. Ellen and I will be contributing $278 for our own pledges, and I’ve raised an additional $660 from generous pledges from CARL RIGNEY, SUSAN DAIGLE-LEACH, MARTIN MILLER, AL B. WESLOWSKY, JIM AND WENDY WILLIAMS and SHAWN GALDEEN. Thanks to all of them for their very generous pledges!

The World Series of Birding is over for this year. Before we know it we’ll be planning for the next one. When we do, you’ll hear about it here!