Cusimania: Arrivals from Amazonia, and around the corner

An hour or two spent just standing around on certain promontories at Cape May Point resulted in my first Eastern Kingbird of the year fresh in from the steamy lowlands of South America. It was admirably spotted by a young birder of some renown, and came right in off the cold Atlantic, wings all stiffly a flutter and kept below the horizontal, reminiscent of a Spotted Sandpiper, as is their wont.

I know I say this regarding nearly all life-forms (ticks and certain parasitic worms notably excepted) but I have a soft spot for Eastern Kingbirds. They have more than their fair share of personality, and seem at ease with their bipolar, or at least seasonally affected nature. Tyrannus tyrannus indeed all summer, pugnacity being a point of pride, they are the scourge of fields and ponds, resenting all life forms who cross their territory; yet all winter they do an about-face and are as social and tame as a Tyrannid cast in the role of Waxwing can be.

Behavior aside, they are also perfectly proportioned, as if the ideal model for the diagram elucidating the parts of bird in the beginning of a field-guide. They are also eminently tasteful in their elegantly simple two-toned color scheme, with a bit of flair in the shining white tip of the tail, and one contrasting, but seldom revealed complimentary flash of color in the little coronal patch. In all respects Kingbirds are handsome birds, and with a nature to match appearances.

Also just in from the very heart of Amazonia, were growing numbers of Chimney Swifts, and bearing news from the mouth of the Amazon and the marl flats of the Guianas were noisy little flocks of Eastern Willets. The Willets, coming in from high over the sea, would turn and wheel to check out land, for all the world like planes circling an airport to see if this was the runway...or marsh that they indeed wanted to land on.

Leaving the point, a nice long walk with a friend in some piney woods turned up some interesting segmented creatures; many of them recent arrivals from ponds, burrows, or pupae as distant from very nearly where we found them today in winged form. Nonetheless dramatic in their journeys for lack of mileage, but in degree perhaps a bit more impressive than the migrations of trans-hemispheric vertebrates

Juvenal's Duskywings, Henry's Elfins, "Spring" Azures, Eastern Tailed Blues, Mourning Cloaks, the odd anglewing or Red Admiral, and perhaps best of all, some very cooperative Eastern Pine Elfins put on good shows for the leps. Blue Corporals and Harlequin Darners represented the odes, and one of the most stunning beetles in the east, and always a favorite, the dashing (literally and figuratively), aerial, Six-spotted Tiger Beetles were patrolling the dirt tracks.

And the best part of that walk in Clermont, (northern Cape May County) was that it was in a place where no-one ever goes! Well off the beaten track, it was a welcome relief to just be in the woods on a Saturday, and not on a well worn and trafficked nature trail in a park. (Hats off to Sam Galick for the "new"spot, and for putting names to many of the "bugs"!)