Photo by Mike Crewe, © New Jersey Audubon.

I saw this bird today flying around over Bunker Pond in the Cape May Point State Park. It’s a Whiskered Tern, a species native to Europe, Asia and Africa, but it shouldn’t be here. It’s the third one ever seen in North America. All three sightings are from Cape May, New Jersey, the previous two were 1993 and 1998.

Fall migration is on now, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to go birding yet. Today I was helping out at the Cape May Bird Observatory when word came of this rarity. The entire staff headed right for the door to go see it. I offered to hold the fort, and when the first staffer came back satisfied, I took the short drive to see it myself. The bird was easy to spot, a tern with mottled gray plumage, but my looks weren’t this good, CMBO staffer Mike Crewe is an ace photographer. Ten minutes of birding so far this fall, one new bird for my life list. (And the first in several years.) Pretty cool! Now I remember why we moved here…