Cape May Field Sketches - Part Five

American Coot at 'The Meadows.' Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Unusual circumstances found us back in Cape May, NJ for the second time this fall, not a bad place to be of course. Though it's always tempting to reach for the camera first, especially for rarities, I tried to force myself to first reach for the sketchbook.

With the exception of the one more developed pencil sketch of a Cattle Egret and Ring-billed Gull all of the sketches are done with various brush pens. After a week of such drawings I was more firmly convinced of how much I like them and how I ought to stick with them.

They of course don't offer the detail of pencil or ballpoint pen but they do offer the sense of fluidity and spontaneity. This is more important to me and is much more likely, at least for me, to lead to a more developed print or painting.

The one more developed sketch by the way was more developed only because the Cattle Egret was so cooperative alternately strutting and meandering around the lawn adjacent to the Cape May Point State Park parking lot. I was able to sit on a bench set up my scope and sketch him. Of course he didn't sit still but I was eventually able to see him enough times in one more or less similar position to do the pencil sketch. When he disappeared I turned to the far more stationary gull.

Cattle Egret at Cape May Point State Park. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Cattle Egret at Cape May Point State Park. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Cattle Egret and Ring-billed Gull at Cape May Point State Park. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Eastern Phoebe and Yellow-rumped Warbler in Cape May. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Immature Hermit Thrush at Rea Farm. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitchers and Killdeer at 'The Meadows.' Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitchers. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitcher and Yellow-rumped Warbler. Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Long-billed Dowitcher at 'The Meadows.' Field Sketch by Ken Januski.

Sorting Dowitchers

I suppose in any field you hear a truism and assume it is true until someone tells you otherwise. I've always heard and read that Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitchers could really only be told apart by call. But shorebirds are not my area of expertise. Perhaps if I'd seen more of them I'd know this isn't true.

In any case the shorebird workshop mentioned in the last post spent a fair amount of time showing how to differentiate them. But even after all that when I saw the mystery dowitcher that I spent an hour sketching and photographing I thought it was a specific race of a Short-billed Dowitcher.

As I looked through my photos though I realized that one showed a longer, thinner bill than is often found on a Short-billed. When I looked at 'The Shorebird Guide' I found this regarding molting adult Long-billeds:

Head molt starts earlier than body molt so many late-summer birds have agray-headed, salmon-bellied look.

The Shorebird Guide, by Michael O'Brien, Richard Crossley and Kevin Karlson

The gray head with salmon wash on neck and going into belly was one of the most striking parts of this bird. That, the long bill, the rich colors of feathers, and the 'swallowed-a-grapefruit', hunched look all make me think this was a Long-billed. And I'm sure if I remembered everything from the class I could cite a couple of other reasons.

In the long run it doesn't make much difference. But for me part of the enjoyment of birding is trying to make difficult IDs like this.

One side note: hardly had I started this than our whole house shook. The cats appeared in the hallway with wide-eyed looks. Yes it felt just like one of those earthquakes I used to experience in California. And it was: a 5.8 one centered in Virginia and felt all the way to New York.

I think I wrote a few months ago about how the study of geology humbles you. And to actually feel geology is probably doubly humbling. It's so easy to think that our lives and what goes on in them, including the most idiotic headlines in sensationalist news, are what's important. Then the ground wiggles under you and you have second thoughts.