Actually, this greeting is from Milford, Pennsylvania – just across the river from NJ. This is where we are stationed for our all-too-brief two days of scouting for Saturday’s World Series of Birding.

Heidi (Luke’s Mom) is on her way to the airport to pick up our 4th and final team member, Ethan, who’s on his way in from Ohio. Luke, Heidi, and I picked up Ian in Massachusetts and met up with Kai in Connecticut (but he’s from Western MA) and arrived here in Milford yesterday evening.

Today was spent scouting the northwest corner of New Jersey, mostly in the Stokes State Forest and High Point State Park area. This is a gorgeous part of the state, much, much, much different from the Northeastern part of the state – which is what everyone thinks of when they think of NJ. Rolling wooded hills, farm fields, small, narrow, quiet roads. Very bucolic, and very beautiful!

Since we only have to days to scout, we decided to focus on the first half of the day. Actually, our 2 days of scouting will really only be for about 5 hours (4:00am through 9:00am) on Saturday! Our goal today – in addition to learning roads, learning locations, and studying some unfamiliar birds – was to “nail down” some important targets for Saturday. We ended up seeing 88 species – including 18 species of warblers, and although we didn’t find anything as important as an occupied woodpecker hole or a raptor nest, we did get a great feel for many of the sites we will be rushing through Saturday morning.

For me, highlights included a great look at a Cerulean Warbler – the first that I have seen in years! We also heard 4-5 others throughout the course of the day. We also had great looks at a male Golden-winged Warbler – quite possibly one of the last Golden-wings left in the state – which is always a treat. A very cooperative Louisiana Waterthrush, at least 8 different Blue-winged Warblers, and about 6 Yellow-throated Vireos were also highlights for me. More importantly, from a World Series perspective, we had a couple singing Brown Creepers, 4 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, Common Ravens, etc, that are very rare breeders in NJ, and are all “must gets” for the WSB.

At the motel this evening, a bunch of teams got together for a “swap meet” of scouting information. This is one of the great aspects of the WSB – all these highly competitive teams getting together to exchange information in order to help each other see more birds. Yes, the competition is there, but the real goal of seeing all of these birds is to raise money for conservation causes – so the more birds more teams see the better it is for everyone!

Tomorrow will be more scouting, maybe a dry run, and then hopefully a couple of hours of shut-eye before the 24-hr marathon on Saturday. I’ll talk to you soon – if I survive!