Sometimes it is the "easy" birds that are the most difficult. A friend from Massachussets, John Mitchell, was down in the area on business and wanted to do birding trip with me a week ago Friday. Prior to the trip, I sent him the NJ Bird List and asked him to identify what species he wanted to see/photograph. Based on his Target List, I decided we would start our trip at Barnegat Light, then drive down to Cape May for a few hours and then hopefully have enough daylight left to finish off the day at Brigantine (Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge). It was a great day of birding, with good weather and mostly very cooperative birds that allowed us to hit all 3 birding locations. Out of the 71 species we saw that day, 16 were on John's Target List including at least 3 lifers. Although most species were very cooperative (one mixed flock of Dunlin and Purple Sandpipers actually landed at John's feet as he was photographing some nearby Harlequin Ducks), it always seems that one lifer species just will not cooperate. For John that day, it turned was the Carolina Chickade! Although, both Carolina (south) and Black-capped Chickadee (north) are common here in New Jersey, there is only a narrow band in central New Jersey where their ranges overlap. The Carolina Chickadee, especially down in Cape May, should have been an easy bird to find and then photograph.
Carolina Chickadee
Black-capped Chickadee
