One of the nice things about having family in South Jersey is that when I get a chance to visit them I get a chance to bird another habitat. My cousin and his wife live in Millville which is very close to Belleplain State Forest, Heislerville, and Turkey Point— all very good areas to bird. So throughout the day today I visited all these places.

I started off in the morning by throwing my bike on my car and heading to Belleplain. The sky was pretty ominous so I didn’t have high hopes for a long trip. This was fine for me because I really only had one target species: Kentucky Warbler.

I parked my car at Sunset Bridge and as soon as I stepped out I was greeted by the sound of Acadian Flycatchers. By the time I got my bike off the rack I had also heard Prothonotary Warbler and Summer Tanager— two birds I wouldn’t see back home (although I have seen Protho, never have I see Summer in Luzerne Co.). I continued on and not very far I saw a bird fly across the road a little ways in front of me. As I grew closer it flew across again. Sure enough when I got to the bird I was able to find it, my first visual on a Kentucky Warbler. Up until this point I had only heard Kentucky Warblers so this was quite a feat since they can be secretive and stubborn.

Once I had the Kentucky I figured I was ready to push off passerines and start thinking about shorebirds and terns so I headed back to my car to head off to Heislerville. A couple minutes later I was there— but it was high tide. This meant no habitat on the Bay side for sandpipers. I continued down the wildlife drive and found that there was some good shorebird habitat. As soon as I got out of the car and my scope set up the rain started. I still managed to give a look and came up with 7 species of shorebirds: Killdeer, Semipalmated Plover, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, and Short-billed Dowitcher. Nothing spectacular and Least Sandpiper was the most prevalent.

Fast forward to later in the day when my cousin and his wife took my daughter to the movies and my other daughter was napping with my wife. So I took the chance to head down to Turkey Point. Not exactly at Turkey Point but at an area I think is called Dividing Creek I stopped to scan the now low tide area. The only sandpiper I could find was a single Greater Yellowlegs hanging out with some gulls. At first I thought the highlight was a Clapper Rail I found in the scope feeding with two juveniles. But then I looked to my left and noticed another Clapper Rail right by the road and this one was with 2 chicks still in their black down. This was the first time I ever got to see rail chicks so I was pretty excited. The sky was still pretty dark but I tried for photos. Unfortunately when I moved in closer the chicks ran into the reeds and I never saw them again. The rest of the time there was pretty uneventful. Some Forster’s Terns and lots of Seaside Sparrows.

On the way back I was driving with the windows down and a Yellow-throated Warbler caught my ear. Since I very rarely see these back home and haven’t seen one since the one I had in April I pulled over and walked back the 20 or so yards to where I heard it. I began to pish and suddenly was surrounded by birds. A couple Yellow-throated Warblers came down to see me as well as a bunch of Carolina Chickadees, a Great-crested Flycatcher, a Black-and-white Warbler, a Worm-eating Warbler, and- the highlight- a Prothonotary Warbler. Spurred by this stop I stopped one more time on the way home just down the road at a dirt road and found a Summer Tanager, Eastern Wood-Pewees, and a few other birds.

All in all pretty good for not really going on this trip to bird. Think I need to visit family more often…