A fine hour at the Meadows

While this morning was largely a bust birdwise, from 6:30 to 7:30,  South Cape May Meadows failed to disappoint, as per usual.

A Marsh Wren rattled from the Cattails, terns bathed and the rich, throaty warble of Blue Grosbeak wafted from some Sassafrass scrub. He was easily found, and had nary a patch or fringe of out of place brown on his deep cornflower blue plumage. What a handsome thing.

17 Breeding plumaged Common Loons were roosting on the dead-calm ocean. Most in pairs, the steeper foreheads of the more robust males making them readily sorted. Striking as the checkered black and white and imposing proportions of Common Loons are, more surprising was a breeding plumaged Red-throated Loon. Even stranger in that this is the second such red-throat I've seen this spring-or at least the second view of the same loon. Usually they moult further to the north than New Jersey, and I can count on one hand the number of nuptial plumed Red-throats I have ever seen down this way.

A flock of 25 Chimney Swifts were twittering and circling, feeding with swallows of four species on a recent hatch of midges, and far less auspiciously, mosquitoes this evening.  While there has been a steady trickle this week, this is the first large flock, and they were clearly our local breeders, as a few minuted later, they spiraled down into certain favored clock towers and gables in the center of Cape May proper.

And last but not least, an American Bittern flapped heavily up out of the cattails at the meadows, just after sunset, and after gaining altitude, beat a bee-line to the northwest. I wonder where on the continent his breeding marsh may be? The possibilities are staggering.