Party Crashing NJ Nesting Birds

Partiers and boaters down near Cape May have been using Champagne Island, home to nesting Royal Terns, Piping Plovers, and the largest Black Skimmer colony in NJ, as their personal bar and private beach.

Story here

Eyewitnesses have seen kids literally throwing Skimmer eggs into the water. NJ Audubon is stepping in. Here's a response from them:

We (NJAS/CMBO) have been in contact with state officials about Champagne Island. The situation is a muddy one because of uncertain ownership and jurisdiction. The island is geographically within three different municipalities at the moment, but may be partially or wholly within the jurisdiction of the state Tidelands Commission. The island is ephemeral, moves around Hereford Inlet with storms, and some years doesn’t even exist. The only certain enforcement authority with respect to the tern and skimmer colony at present lies with DEP’s Bureau of Law Enforcement Conservation Officers, who are able to write warnings or tickets only if visitors to the island take or attempt to take endangered or threatened species, as per the state endangered species statute. It is not illegal to land on the island. I spoke to the state Bureau of Law Enforcement today, and they are aware of the situation. Officers have been to the island and I was told they will continue to do what they can to protect the colony.

Butterflies & Dragonflies at Fairview Farm

Beth and I took a trip to the butterfly garden at Fairview Farm yesterday to scout for a "Beginner's Butterflies and Dragonflies" trip I'm leading there this weekend. Here are some pics that Beth took.

Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) love is in the air. The one on the bottom is a more yellow variation of this common critter.


A Northern Broken-dash (Wallengrenia egeremet) on some Purple Coneflower.


Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) hanging out on parsley


Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) - a small, common dragonfly of ponds and streams


White Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis)

Chicory Coffee

I can't remember when I first read that the roots of Chicory (Cichorium intybus), a common roadside alien plant, make a decent coffee substitute. I remember being intrigued and planning to try it. Years went by and I never bothered. This Christmas I got an awesome coffee grinder and French press from my sister. The wheels were set in motion.

Chicory is pretty abundant right now, but Beth and I weren't able to find a spot that was easily accessible (AKA not in the middle of a main road) to pick some. Lucky for me, Beth brought me home a gift yesterday – a big bunch of Chicory!

I cut the roots off and composted the remains (although we could have eaten the leaves I guess). I cleaned the roots with a scrub brush and lots of water, then cut them into small pieces. I had read that I should roast them at 250 degrees for 2 hours. I laid them on a cookie sheet and popped them in the oven. After an hour, the root chunks had reduced to about half the size and looked like little twigs. There was also a distinct nutty aroma in the kitchen. The "twigs" looked pretty dry to me, so I took them out.

I let them cool, then ground them up into what looked like sawdust. I decided to make a brew of half coffee (shade-grown of course!) and half chicory. Beth had read that pure chicory coffee is very bitter. After tasting the concoction, I couldn't really discern any distinct flavor, but I did notice that the coffee tasted less bitter normal. Beth quickly quipped, "Well, that's probably because you used half as much." Good point.

So, I feel like I still don't know what chicory tastes like. Perhaps I didn't roast it long enough to bring out its flavor or perhaps mixing it with coffee was the wrong approach. I have a little of the chicory left so maybe I'll try a pure chicory coffee tonight.

In retrospect, I should have taken some pictures of this effort. Sorry readers! For an excellent history of chicory and chicory coffee, check out Coffeeproject.com.

A little housekeeping

I needed to do a little housekeeping on the blog. I wanted to switch over to the Beta format so here it is. I've gone with the popular "minima" template with some slight modifications. As I figure out all of these tags, I'll make it more customized. Now I can finally put those post labels to good use.

Eight Random Facts Meme

I stole this from Bill Schmoker:

Here are the rules for Eight Random Facts:

• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

I bet you didn't know this... or maybe you did:

1) I have a black belt in American Isshinryu Karate, trained by the amazing Ernie Temple. I'm on a bit of a hiatus now though.

2) In high school I played the tuba and marched in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland.

3) During college, I ate 67 buffalo wings in a single sitting at the amazing Pic-a-lilli in Shamong, NJ. The trick is not to drink any soda.

4) A few years ago I had several bonsai trees and attended several classes on how to do bonsai. Unfortunately, the trees died, but I still have quite a bonsai book collection and a brain full of bonsai knowledge. I'll pick it up again soon.

5) Beth and I own a piano, but neither of us play it very well.

6) I love to cook and am semi-obsessed with the Food Network.

7) I once had a mullet and thought I was cool. Now I'm bald. I think that's karma.

8) I have a severe nail biting habit. I've tried to stop many times, but it's tough.

OK, now who shall I tag?

Beth
Paul
Mike
Corey
Will
Laura
Larry
Jochen

July 3: East Brunswick Butterfly Park

Beth and I visited the nearby East Brunswick Butterfly Park yesterday. This place is a real treat to have locally. The variety of plants is spectacular and they attract lots of nice butterflies and other interesting insects. Beth took some excellent pictures, as usual!

The sign at the entrance to the park

Daisy with a bee on it

A large patch of White Lizard's Tail (I think) attracted the most action.

I *think* this is a Crossline Skipper - any takers?

Red Admiral

Silver-spotted Skipper

Other butterflies we saw included Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Monarch, Eastern Tailed Blue, Summer Azure, and tons of Cabbage Whites.

Red Milkweed Beetle - Tetraopes tetraophthalmus

I think the action is just beginning to pick up there. We're looking forward to going back later in the summer.

Review: The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide

Costa Rica is an extremely popular destination for birders in the tropics, so it's surprising that the only good field guide that's been available was published in 1989. A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by F. Gary Stiles and Alexander F. Skutch is a classic, but unfortunately a lot has changed in Costa Rican birding in the last 18 years. There have been splits, range expansions, and name changes galore making Stiles and Skutch (S&S) difficult to use without a bunch of handwritten notes.

Finally, a new field guide dedicated to Costa Rica was published in May - The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean. Garrigues and Dean (G&D) are two of Costa Rica's top birders and they've really come through with a book "for birders, by birders."

The first thing I noticed about the book was its size and portability. It's compact and about the size of the National Geographic North America guide. This is a big change from S&S which is a very large book due to its inclusion of natural history information (habits and nesting) for each bird. On my two trips to Costa Rica, the size of S&S was always a pain because it was usually packed away in someone's backpack. On the flip side, G&D is extremely portable, but lacks the natural history information on each bird so you may want to keep your S&S around.

The book is organized like most traditional field guides. There is a brief introduction on how to use the book and then it jumps right into the birds. Each section starts with a short paragraph describing the family. Each bird is illustrated in fantastic detail in all of its adult plumages. Each entry is accompanied by a description of the bird with key field marks in bold. Range information, a description of the vocalizations, and a notation if the bird is endemic are also included. The biggest leap from S&S is the inclusion of a range map next to each entry. These can be compared to a detailed map of Costa Rica in the front cover.

One thing that confused me at first was the scale of the drawings on each page. Each drawing is to scale with the other drawings on the page, but some pages include one or more drawings that are of a different scale. These drawings are separated from the others by a black line. This took some getting used to. Also, you have to keep this scale in mind because one page of Empidonax flycatchers may have 6 large drawings and the next will have 12 small drawings even though the birds are the same size in life.

The back of the book includes a helpful glossary of terms, an extremely informative summary of taxonomic changes from S&S, a complete list of Costa Rican birds including a few not illustrated in the book, an index, and 2 plates of raptor flight illustrations. The list of Costa Rican birds could have been left out and saved 7-8 pages or it could have been used as a checklist instead. Also, I don't know why the raptor flight plates were included here and not in the raptor section. I guess it makes a nice quick reference, but it just seemed strange.

Overall, this book easily replaces Stiles and Skutch in the field. If you already own S&S, you will want to use this as a reference for natural history information, but you can leave it home when venturing out into the rainforest. I salute Garrigues and Dean for their hard work on what is surely a labor of love. I'm excited to go back to Costa Rica someday to really use the book in the field.

The Endangered Regal Fritillary

While driving back to NJ from our "guys' baseball weekend" in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, we passed by the exit to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. The huge green exit sign sparked something in my memory... why did I know this place? Ahh yes... Fort Indian Town Gap is home to the only viable colony of the Regal Fritillary butterfly in the eastern US. Specifically, it lives on the Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center.

The range of the Regal Fritillary (Speyeria idalia) originally stretched from Maine to Montana and south to Oklahoma and North Carolina. Because the caterpillars utilize the prairie species of violets, this species was never found outside tallgrass prairie. Over the last 50 years, the species has sharply declined in the east and has lost 30% of its range due to many possible factors. Suburban sprawl and the conversion of prairies to farmland has led to severe habitat loss. Use of herbicides and pesticides could also affect populations. These butterflies also have a rather haphazard method for laying eggs. Instead of laying their eggs directly on the host plants, like most butterflies do, they lay their eggs randomly throughout their grassland habitat. To make up for this approach, they lay about 2,400 eggs - more than most other butterflies. Combining habitat loss and limited host plants, their egg-laying strategy could be causing additional population declines.

In the right habitat, Regal Fritillaries can be seen flying all summer. They lay eggs during late summer and those eggs overwinter and hatch the following summer. If you're interested in seeing this species in the east, tours are available at Fort Indiantown Gap during the month of July.

Is it too late for this species in the east? Their one remaining population is hanging on and there are re-introduction programs underway in New England and some mid-Atlantic states. Only time will tell if this beautiful species can regain its historic status.

Source: Great Plains Nature Center
Picture: The Nature Conservancy