Cape May Field Sketches - Part Six

Each time I post on this blog it seems like a longer time since the last post. In this case I've been holding off until I had a little more progress on my latest moku hanga print. But then a vacation to Cape May, NJ interfered with that plan.
When we got there I discovered that I'd forgotten my camera. Nothing could have been better for me. I'm never all that satisfied with photos anyway and the lack of camera forced me to spend much more time sketching.
So I'm adding another episode of field sketches from Cape May, this the longest yet. Below are pencil field sketches of various shorebirds.

Field  Sketch of American Oystercatcher on Nest at 'The Meadows'

Field Sketch of Dunlin and Short-billed Dowitcher at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of  Semi-palmated Plover, Short-billed Dowitcher and Greater Yellowlegs at  Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Willet at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of  Wilson's Snipe at 'The Meadows.'

Field  Sketch of Least Sandpipers  at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Least Sandpiper at  'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Ruddy Turnstone  and Greater Yellowlegs at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Semi-palmated Plover at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Short-billed Dowitcher at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Mating Willets at Cooks Beach.

Field Sketch of Short-billed Dowitcher at Heislerville WMA.

Just to give a bit of a break to all these undifferentiated photos of drawings I'm continuing to divide by species, more or less. The following are pencil field sketches of gulls, terns, waterfowl and wading birds.

Field Sketch of Black Skimmer  at Heislerville WMA.

Field Sketch of Bonaparte's Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull  at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Brant at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Forsters Tern at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of  Glossy  Ibis  at Heislerville WMA.

Field  Sketch of  Immature Little Blue Heron at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Adult  Little Blue Heron at 'The Meadows.'

Field Sketch of Tri-colored Heron at The Wetlands Institute.

And finally some other birds, and of course the Diamondback Terrapin from The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Diamondback Terrapin Swimming in Tank at The Wetlands Institute.

Field Sketch of Eastern Meadowlark in Field on Sumner St.

Field Sketch of Marsh Wren at Jake's Landing.

Field Sketch  of Northern Parula at Cape May Point State Park.

Field Sketch of Osprey on Nest at Garrett Family Preserve.

Field Sketch of Prairie Warbler at Vine St. near Belleplain SF.

Field  Sketch of  Red-headed Woodpecker  at Garrett Family Preserve.

Field Sketch of Yellow-throated Warbler at Belleplain SF.

If you made it this far perhaps you like drawing or perhaps you like drawing of wildlife. I'm always torn between the desire to put down on paper what I see in the world in front of me and the creation of a work of art, something that can be related but that is often quite different. Now it's time to get back to creating a work of art in the form of a moku hanga print of an American Woodcock.

Confusing Fall Flycatchers

Jerene and I spent most of yesterday out birding in Philadelphia. We spent the morning at Carpenter's Woods and the afternoon at Morris Arboretum. One of the surprises of this August has been the discovery that there are a number of migrating warblers, and other migrants, around at this time of year. I'd read that some shorebirds actually start their southern migration as early as late June, but I didn't realize until this year that warblers were also on their way by mid-August or earlier.

So I've seen a number of warblers over the last few weeks, most of them at Carpenter's Woods. They include: Blue-Winged, Canada, Black and White, American Redstart, and Common Yellowthroat. Yesterday we added Magnolia, Black-Throated Blue, and Chestnut-Sided at Carpenter's Woods. Despite the famous line about "confusing fall warblers", probably from Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds, we haven't really run into that many difficult fall warblers.

Over the last few weeks though, we have run into plenty of confusing fall flycatchers. The main problem is that many of them are neither singing nor calling. No 'peeaweees', 'che-BEK!s', 'PIZZZa!s' or 'FEEBEES' to give a clue. For the most part the birds are silent. When the view is only from behind, as it was for a flycatcher at Carpenter's Woods last week, is the bird an Eastern Wood-Pewee or an Acadian Flycatcher? Or yesterday at Morris Arboretum, what were the many flycatchers? The huge eye-ring of one, combined with color and tail-flicking, determined it to be a Least Flycatcher. But we didn't hear the familiar 'CheBEK' that used to waken us at Shenandoah National Park. Fortunately the other clues were enough for identification. But what about the other flycatchers we saw: strong white throat, light vest, yellow, lower bill and fine, narrow eye-ring? We finally narrowed it down to Willow/Alder. According to David Sibley first year winter Alder's have a 'distinct but narrow eye-ring'. These two birds both did but were they first year winter birds? I leaned toward calling them Alders due to their fine eye-ring but finally had to just call them Willow/Alder. If only one of them would have called.

As for the back view of the Pewee/Acadian I finally decided on Acadian, due to the somewhat oval eye-ring. The next day I came upon another flycatcher at Carpenter's Woods, this time a grayer bird with noticeably longer primary projection. He also flew back to the same perch, like Eastern Wood-Pewees often do. So I decided he was an Eastern Wood Pewee. Then, in an unusual occurrence for August flycatchers, he sang his plaintive 'pawee'. I was thankful to finally have some aural confirmation for my identifications.

All in all it has some very challenging birding, necessitating the weighing of many clues to make a final, but often tentative identification. So I stand with my headline: 'Confusing Fall Flycatchers.'