Roads have been traveled

The last 4 days have been insane. This is going list style to get it down, because I'm writing this at a campground in Cape May, NJ, waiting for the rain to begin. It was supposed to start at 3pm.

On Friday, I got some birding in with Jerry and Joe at Webb State Park in Weymouth. Not very birdy their that day, but quite nice to get a chance to say goodbye to the dudes. New for the list their was an EASTERN PHOEBE.

Later in the day, I drove up to the White Mountains to meet up with other Weymos to camp for the weekend. I had intentions of birding a great deal while I was up there, but it was more of a "hanging out" type situation. In New Hampshire, I came across a WILD TURKEY and YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER new for my year list.

On Monday, I left the camp and headed to West Hartford to meet my friend Bret at work. After that, headed to the Lower East Side of Manhattan to meet up with Dave at a show he was working at. Last night, I stayed in Brooklyn with him and his galfriend Bianca. I was planning to hit Central Park today, but Dave suggested Prospect Park in his borough. Magnificent idea.

Today was unbelievably productive their birdwise. I borrowed Dave's bike, and traversed the whole park over the course of about 5 hours. Although I didn't catch all 21 warbler species reported by the Brooklyn Bird Club on September 5th, I did manage to eek out 11, which included a lifer CANADA WARBLER. I saw a total of 38 species there today, with other notables including VEERY, WOOD THRUSH, BLACKPOLL WARLBER, NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH, and CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER. My most exciting one (even more than the lifer) was identifying an ALDER FLYCATCHER by call after watching him for about 20 minutes. Very satisfying and fulfilling.

After the long drives of the past few days, I'm ready to settle in here in Cape May for a couple. I hope the extreme weather predcted proves to be useful for trapping warblers here and sending pelagics ashore, as opposed to just soaking your fearless author.