Fieldsketching Shorebirds around Cape May

It's been quite awhile since we took a birding workshop. We learned to bird taking them at Pocono Center for Environmental Education about 15-20 years ago. The last we took was at least 8 years ago, a week long course on Spring Migration at Cape May Bird Observatory.

But we've been getting more and more interested in shorebirds and CMBO was offering a course, 'Shorebirds With the Man Who Wrote the Book' last week. The 'Man' is Michael O'Brien, and the book is 'The Shorebird Guide.'

We couldn't have made a better choice. Michael, along with his wife, birder and artist Louise Zemaitis, is a wonderful and extremely knowledgeable birder and teacher. At the end of our three day course we finally feel somewhat comfortable with shorebirds. More than that we both feel that we've learned how to look at them, so that we can figure out what something is when we see it.

That said almost as soon as the course was over we were faced with a bird that looked exactly like a dowitcher, more likely Short-billed than Long-billed, but behaved much more like a Pectoral Sandpiper. Last night as I looked at my guides, photos and field sketches I still wasn't sure and started to lean more towards a Long-billed Dowitcher. That's really not important though. What I think we both find so exciting is that we are now able to look at a shorebird and figure out how to decipher what we see. The sketch above includes the mystery bird below and a Common Tern above. One bonus about this week was that terns were included free. Everywhere the shorebirds were we seemed to see some terns as well. They are also pretty unfamiliar to us so I spent a lot of time sketching them.

At top are some of the first birds we saw: two American Oystercatchers, a Piping Plover, and a Long-billed Dowitcher, facing away but with his head turned 180 degrees and buried in his mantle. As you can see I spent much of my time trying to sketch and annotate diagnostic field marks of the various birds.

We did see a wealth of birds. I'm amazed that I was able to sketch so many of them during the course. Below two sketches of a distant Marbled Godwit with a Least Tern in between.

Next a very small Osprey which seemed it must be an immature, except that his plumage indicated adult. And with him a Caspian Tern, that stayed just long enough for this sketch.

Next an immature Great Blue Heron drying his wings. I skipped most herons and egrets I saw this trip but this pose was too striking to pass up.

Now some young Piping Plovers, almost invisible on the sand of Stone Harbor. One of the surprises of this part of the trip was the discovery of Loggerhead Turtle tracks, seemingly there to lay eggs. A naturalist with the group recognized them. The local naturalists said they had no knowledge of any sea turtles ever trying to lay eggs in this area. I've not yet had time to read up on them or to find out whether this is a real nest or a fake nest, which is always a possibility with Loggerheads I guess. Local naturalists are pursuing this.

Moving from sea turtles to a Ruddy Turnstone with his head stretched out looking for food, and a juvenile Western Sandpiper, complete with notes as to why this is a Western and not a Semi-palmated.

A Short-billed Dowitcher with Least Tern below.

Two of my favorite sketches: a juvenile Semi-palmated Sandpiper with bright, fresh plumage and a distant Whimbrel who raised his wings momentarily. One of the things I love about field sketching is being able to capture moments such as this. The only way to do it though I think is with constant practice. The more you sketch the better you get AND the more chances you have to see something like this. As I've said before it can easily become addictive.

And finally two White-rumped Sandpipers and a Sandwich Tern, both birds we've never seen before.

Our vacation was short, just three full days and two partial days. But it was one of the best ever. Fresh, invigorating ocean breezes, new birds, a very knowledgeable and effective teacher and many field sketches. It's hard to ask for anything more.

Birding by Numbers

A few weeks ago I wrote about our 4-5 days at Cape May and the extraordinary variety and number of birds that are there. We saw nearly 100 different birds. For us that is a very high number, especially as we never count birds where we don't get a very clear, definitive view. Recently we also spent about a week in Shenandoah National Park. There we saw a little over 50 different birds.

Which was more enjoyable? There is no doubt that it was the Shenandoah experience. I can't deny the enjoyment I get in seeing new birds and adding to a count, for a day, a year, a vacation, or for the ultimate count, The World Series of Birding, which took place at Cape May last weekend. It's a pleasant combination of sport and nature.

Because we often stay for 5 days or more in Shenandoah, and always in the same place, we get to know the birds. Last year I did a pastel of an Acadian Flycatcher whose photo I took at a certain spot on the South River trail. This spring we saw another Acadian at almost the exact same spot. I find something enjoyable in finding a bird in the same location. Perhaps it's the same bird. Perhaps it's just the perfect habitat for this species. In either case this type of birding is more than just birding. It's also about ecology, about understanding and enjoying a bird in its world. Our time in Shenandoah is always full of experiences like this.

It also includes almost always some very good looks at certain birds. This trip some of the stars were Canada Warblers, one of which is seen in the quick watercolor above. They are a very chatty and fairly personable bird. Sometimes their brilliant yellow and black can be seen clearly in the sunshine. But more often we find them somewhat hidden in foliage, often the omnipresent Witch Hazel of Shenandoah. So often their brilliant colors shine from a rather dark environment. (As a side note the watercolor at top of this blog is based on a photo of a Blackburnian Warbler also in a Witch Hazel at Shenandoah that I took a number of years ago.)

In this watercolor I've made the background darker than it really was. This is called 'artistic improvisation.' If you lose the original brightness just do your best to still get a good paintng. That's what I've done here.

I did intend to do some work from life on this trip. In fact I had some new watercolor brushes and paper sent in a rush shipment so I'd get them in time. Maybe that guaranteed I'd never use them.......:-(. More likely it was just that the birds moved too quickly. So once again I've brought back a large collection of digital photos that will eventually make their way into paintings and drawings. But all the while I knew that I was missing something that only working from life can gain. So I still intend to do more work from life soon.

This trip was a rich one, so I'm sure that both writings and artwork based on it will soon find its way into this blog.

1 of 1600

Please don't take this as gospel truth. The figure 1 of 1600 refers to the number of pairs of Piping Plovers on the East Coast of the U.S. It was a rough figure given to us by a field biologist at 'The Meadows' of The Nature Conservancy in Cape May, NJ. Further research online found an estimate of less than 2000 nesting pairs in 2008. Wikipedia says the total world population in 2003 was about 6410. So I don't know a hard and fast figure.

Nonetheless I hope my point is clear: in this small watercolor you are looking at only one of 1600 such bird pairs in existence on the East Coast and two out of a total population of 6410. They are rare, threatened, and special. How often can you look at something whose existence is so severely threatened? What should be done about it?

I won't go on about the ethics of this. I try to avoid such big questions on this blog. So all I will say is that I think it is a great mistake to let any species disappear, especially through neglect.

In talking to the biologist last week I and my wife expected that we would find that the greatest threat to the newborn plover chicks would be human. But that's not the case. Here Laughing Gulls and even Ghost Crabs are greater predators. Nature is complex and things aren't always what they seem. In terms of overall threat to all Piping Plovers I'm sure that loss of beach habitat is at or near the top.

Because Piping Plovers are almost impossible to see when they are not moving we were very fortunate to find them running around all over the beach like windup toys on our first day at Cape May last week. Photos taken then were the basis of the quick watercolor at the top. The next day we were out with a birding group and it was almost impossible to find the birds because most of the time they were sitting still. They are a tremendous example of protective coloration. If humans can't see them then neither can many of their predators.



If the Piping Plovers are an example of 1 in 1600 Heislerville Wildlife Management Area showed the opposite, let's say 1600 of 1600 shorebirds in flight all at the same time. When we first arrived at Matt's Landing at Heislerville last week we saw a number of shorebirds standing in shallow water amidst thousands of small brown, rounded rocks. It was only when I focused my scope on the 'rocks' that I realized that they were birds! Almost all of them were dunlins.

When the shorebirds fly, as in the photo above, they create the equivalent of an optical illusion. There is an explosion of flickering movement, light and shadow. It is really an extraordinary experience. More extraordinary, on a less visceral level, is the knowledge that here, in contrast to the Piping Plovers, you are experiencing nature's profusion. Though again this is misleading. I'm not an expert on shorebirds. In fact I'm pretty new to them. But my guess is that the birds seen here, dunlins, short-billed dowitchers, black-bellied plovers, semi-palmated plovers, semi-palmated sanderlings and greater yellowlegs are also in decline. So unfortunately the sense of profusion is somewhat false. There is no denying the number of birds seen. And it is thrilling to see them, as they stop briefly here on their way to the Arctic tundra to breed. But they are far fewer than they were in the past. Still it was a tremendous sight to see.

One of the extraordinary aspects of Cape May, NJ for birders is that there are so many different birds in different habitats. So although I've talked mainly about shorebirds in this post, we also saw warblers, other passerines, hawks, ducks and other birds in great numbers. This is good and bad. The good is the experience of nature's profusion. The bad is the realization that forces such as geography funnel birds to the Cape May area so that you see an abnormal representation of the bird population. But my feeling, like most others I imagine, is to be thankful that we can take advantage of it. For anybody who does wish to bird the Cape May area I'd highly recommend 'Birds and Birding at Cape May' by Clay and Pat Sutton. And if you're there don't miss the walks given by the Cape May Bird Observatory. As a woman we directed to the CMBO walk at Heislerville told us afterwards: "That was the best six dollars I ever spent!"

I brought along my art materials but didn't have time to do anything but take photos. So I'm sure I'll be posting a lot of new work based on them. But I also intend to make a greater effort to do more work from life. One thing that hit me as I looked through all the photographs I took is that, though I liked many of them, even the ones I liked looked like, well......., photographs! They do not look like what I saw. For that there's art!