"No Big Deal" vol. 1

My brother crashed our family’s Cape May vacation several years ago. Although having a curiosity of the natural world, he definitely is not a birder or naturalist of any sort. Hoping that a morning at fall migration’s East Coast epicenter could be the experience to recruit him, I told him to be ready for a predawn wake up.

The next morning, the trails at Higbee’s Beach holds an attractive assortment of warblers. Yellows, black-and-whites, American Redstarts, and black-throated blues are among the easiest for the rookie to find in his borrowed binoculars. However, it is the Sharp-shinned Hawks coursing over and diving through the trees that excite him more with each passing attempt at breakfast.

Entering the second field, a nice pocket of birds foraging in overdrive grabs our attention, as well as that of several birders nearby. The avidiversity roll call echoed through the group - “black-throated green. Baltimore Oriole. Blue-grey Gnatcatcher. redstart. Yellow-billed Cuckoo, through the trees.”

After several minutes of the play-by-play, my bins land on something different, something new, something really new. Light belly, 2 wing bars, bluish-green on top. . .

“CERULEAN WARBLER!” escapes in a passionate whisper. Life Bird! Having never visited its breeding sites in NJ, it has taken me a few years to finally get a look at this adorable little bird.



I guide my brother’s eyes to the right limb. He starts talking about the bluish bird with striped wings right on the end of the branch.

En route back to the parking lot, I gush with excitement about the Cerulean Warbler. He hits me with an awkward stare, “no big deal. The little blue thing is so common that I saw it my first time out. But those hawks were great!”

I try in vain to explain the prize of a Cerluean Warbler. Resigning to his apathy I agree, “those sharpies were cool.” We share our hawk hunting highlights for the rest of the ride home.

Thanks to Scott Elowitz for his Cerulean Warbler photo.