Friday, May 11, 2012

Corax Confirmation and Cocczyus in the House

I was able to manage a quick hour or so of birding in North Jersey this morning, and was anxious to pay my Raven nest a visit.

The attending parent was again sitting on the other side of the Red Pine trunk from the nest, throat hackles glistening. Almost just as I left her/him ten days ago.

The difference was that clearly visible in the nest, were two fluffy (but not fuzzy), fleshy-gaped, and milky bluish-grey eyed nestlings. Each of the nestlings was easily the size of an American Crow, and I don't know what, if any, is the correct term for a baby corvid, but "pup" seems the most apt.

They mouthed things on the edge of their nest, and looked at each other, out and about at things, and over at their mum in a way that was far more reminiscent of 8-10 week old Black Labs than something usually called a "chick". Maybe it was just their blackness, but these weren't mere gaping passerine mouths governed by stimulus/reponse, or bloodthirsty eaglets. In addition to their ebon softness, there was a certain playfulness to their actions, which rendered them far more like a litter then a clutch.

I only stayed long enough to check them out, and confirm that there were indeed young present, because the second I moved for a camera, mom grew antsy on her perch, so I just drove away.

Eight hours later, at Land's End in Cape May, as far away from the cool (It was only 52 up there this morning) breezy mountain-top pine grove as one could be and still be in the same state; a quick turn around Higbee's Beach, just before sunset as the wind mercifullly began to die down turned up not only more Blue Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings than I have seen yet this year, but also my first Yellow-billed Cuckoos of 2012. Three to be exact.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo numbers and breeding pairs wax and wane based on the number of caterpillars present in any given growing season. Last year with an awful drought was the worst year I've known for them in the ten I've lived in Cape May. (Yellow-billed Cuckoos are one of the few breeding landbirds in the hedgerows and woods of Cape Island, so their numbers are readily noticed by those not brain-dead or list-obsessed. But I repeat myself.) In a good year there may easily be four pairs at Higbee's alone.

I'm hoping that the masses of Admirals, Ladies and Punctuation Marks prsent the last two weeks will leave behind a bounty of Cuckoo Chow. Yellow-billed Cuckoos have a lot of charm, and are sleek, graceful beings. Not Ravens by any means, I am very fond of them nevertheless, though their charm has a much more...archosaurial quality and feel.

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