World Series of Birding (Part 2)

By Andy Bankert

In Stokes Forest we ticked off an easy Cooper’s Hawk on nest, Black-throated Green Warbler, and Broad-winged Hawk on a nest. I am not sure of the order of a lot of the next few places, but we hit Culver’s Lake and identified Warbling Vireo by song (our driver had heard about 10 before that), Yellow-rumped Warbler, and American Black Duck. A side road that has produced several decent birds in the past gave us our White-throated Sparrow and Black-throated Blue Warbler. Van Ness Road held our Golden-winged Warbler and Blue-winged Warbler. We drove to a Magnolia Warbler spot where others had heard one singing earlier in the week, and with our luck the bird was singing. Down the road a little ways we took a bathroom break and ticked off Bald Eagle and the Hermit Thrush we found in scouting. The Common Mergansers were off the bridge where the Zeiss team had them, so we were able to cut out a six minute run to a fairly unreliable spot. In order to save time we moved a small road block that had not been there in scouting. After a few unsuccessful stops we ended up at a Cliff Swallow barn. We think another team had spotted a Goshawk, but all we saw was a flying Red-tailed Hawk. Our last stop in the north was for Winter Wren. After we heard the song we ran to our car, only to hear a team yell back at us telling us that it wasn’t actually the wren that was singing. One of their team members was giving the song trying to get a bird to respond. We knew of one a little further down the road, and got that one.

We crossed I-80 at 9:36 with 135 species. Our next stop would be for Red-headed Woodpeckers at Yard Road. They were calling and a bonus Bobwhite called once for us. Now it was time for the long and boring ride down to the southern part of our route.
Once we made our way to the south, we started picking up day birds again. Birch Creek had Pied-billed Grebe, Common Moorhen, and American Coot all really close to each other. There was also a Great Egret and Orchard Oriole in the area. A quick stop at our Pectoral Sandpiper spot got us our Sandpiper as well as Eastern Meadowlark, Spotted Sandpiper, and Bobolink. There were also Glossy Ibis and Snow Geese on the drive to this spot. We missed a Sandhill Crane that had been seen earlier in the week. Mannington Marsh had the Caspian Tern which we had in scouting. We made a quick stop at a Barn Owl box, since we missed that in the north. A stop in Dividing Creek had our final three warblers of the day (Pine, Yellow-throated, and Prothonotary). Unlike last year, we scouted the warblers that were singing in the afternoon. Gravely Hill Road had Summer Tanager singing at the entrance, as well as a Carolina Chickadee.

Our next few stops were for shorebirds, so our day list really grew. At Bivalve we ticked off most of our easy species and also picked out a Wilson’s Phalarope. Down the road a little ways we ran into the Cornell team and found a Shoveler, Green-winged Teal, Red Knot, and Ruddy Turnstone. It seemed like we were missing lots of shorebirds, but White-rumped Sandpiper was the only one our team was worried about. We heard White-eyed Vireo and saw Blue Grosbeak on the way to our next stop which had White-rumped Sandpiper. It also had both Night-herons and Blue-winged Teal. Turkey Point had Harrier, but it was harder to find than we thought. We made it to Cape May county around 4 pm.

In Cape May county we made a quick stop for Siskin, which failed. We were lacking Hummingbird, so we went for the one on a nest. After scoping the nest we were off to our Cattle Egret spot. The Egrets were not there, nor were they at our backup spot. Once we got south of the canal, we hit Poverty Beach. This late in the day it was surprising to pull out six new day birds. Royal, Least, and Common Terns, Piping Plover, Sanderling, and Common Loon. The plover was our 200th species of the day. The concrete ship had the Great Cormorant, but no Purple Sandpiper. Our last stop south of the canal was a jetty where Purple Sandpipers had been. No luck there (but we did get our day Oystercatcher), so it was time to go back north towards Stone Harbor and Nummies Island. A short stop near a coastal marsh gave us our Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow. A drawbridge was up, so we pulled off the road to look at the water. We found Brant and our only Purple Sandpiper of the day here. Once the bridge went back down we hopped on the road and hit Nummies Island. Nummies held Tricolored Heron and Whimbrel, and we thought it would have Little Blue Heron and Marbled Godwit. Since it would be easier to pick these up when they came to roost we did a seawatch and cameback later. The seawatch had nothing, but Nummies had both of our birds when we got back. There was enough daylight to go back south of the canal to the Meadows. The Gadwall were there so we waited for the sun to go down so we could get Snipe or Nighthawk. Great-horned Owl was our only day bird, but it was still a good find.

As it got closer to 8 we hit our Chuck and Whip spots. We got both of these birds putting us at 211, a great total. We thought we were lucky enough to end the day with Black Rail at Turkey Point. There was another team there once we arrived, but both of us failed at hearing the Black Rail. It was 10:30 when we left, so we had to go back to the finish line in southern Cape May. After we arrived and got out of the car a Nighthawk called, giving us a new day bird at 11:40. We turned in our score of 212, which was the highest for a while until Nikon arrived later than expected. Our team tied for 3rd with the Zeiss Team, Bushnell took second (216) and won the non-resident award, and Nikon/DVOC won the whole thing with a score of 222. This was the first year any youth team had broken the 200 mark, and there was another youth team with 200+. The next day I saw a Curlew Sandpiper after the awards brunch.