Photo Study Of Two Extralimitals At Cape May Today

Mike DeBonis, Jimmy Warren and I went to Cape May today to try and photograph two birds rare to our area, a juvenile Ivory Gull and a Swainson's Hawk. Both  were reported seen earlier this week so we took a chance and were lucky to have both sunshine as well as the birds.

The Ivory Gull (Pagophila eburnea) is a small gull native to the arctic ice pack. It breeds in the high arctic and has a circumpolar distribution through Greenland, northernmost North America and Eurasia. It migrates only short distances south in autumn, most of the population wintering in northern latitudes at the edge of the pack ice, although some birds reach more temperate areas. This species is easy to identify. At 17 inches, it has a different, more pigeon or tern--like shape than the Larus gulls, but the adult has completely white plumage, lacking the gray back of other gulls. The thick bill is blue with a yellow tip, and the legs are black. Its cry is a harsh eeeer. Young birds have a dusky face and variable amounts of black flecking in the wings and tail. The juveniles take two years to attain full adult plumage. Ivory Gulls breed on Arctic coasts and cliffs, laying one to three olive eggs in a ground nest lined with moss, lichens, or seaweed. It takes fish, crustaceans, rodents, eggs and small chicks but is also an opportunist scavenger, often found on seal or porpoise corpses. It has been known to follow polar bears and other predators to feed on the remains of their kills. (Wikpedia)

Ivory Gull

The Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swainsoni), is a large (19 inches) buteo hawk. It is colloquially known as the Grasshopper Hawk or Locust Hawk, as it is very fond of Acrididae (locusts and grasshoppers) and will voraciously eat these insects whenever they are available. Their breeding habitat is prairie and dry grasslands in western North America. They build a stick nest in a tree or shrub or on a cliff edge. This species is a long-distance migrant, wintering in Argentina. There is a single record of a vagrant from Norway. A big thanks goes to Gerry and Chris Dewaghe who helped us find the bird at the fields near the end of Wilson Street where it was actively hunting and feeding on grasshoppers.

Swainson's Hawk

Swainson's Hawk Takes Off

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