Barnegat Lighthouse SP 12/4--POMARINE JAEGER

 
We've reached the stage in Shari's recovery where I feel it's safe to leave her for more than a couple of hours, so this morning, early, I drove up to Barnegat Lighthouse SP with the hope that the immature POMARINE JAEGER was still hanging out on the beach after almost a week. As late as 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon it was sighted, but even with that, my hopes were not high. 

I had little interest in any of the common birds I saw on my trek down to the ocean (a new sign informed me that it was 0.7 miles), so I merely glanced at the birds along the way. Down on the beach I could see there was a large flock of gulls, and I was hoping the jaeger would be in among them. I was careful not to get too close--I was just at the edge of scoping range when I took the scope off my shoulder, but it didn't matter, the whole flock up and flew off, leaving the beach with just a few examples of garden-variety gullage. I wasn't really inclined to just stand there and hope my target would fly in, but I saw a friend of mine coming down along the jetty, so I waited for him. He had seen me set up the scope, so he thought I had the bird, so he was disappointed too. 

We passed the time looking at ducks in the ocean and we were just about to walk back through dunes above the pond, thinking the jaeger might have settled down in there, when another birder I know arrived. Since we hadn't seen the bird, he decided to walk up the beach a bit, but he didn't get more than 50 feet before he said, "There's the bird." 

I was looking for a bird flying in, but the jaeger was hunkered down in the sand among some beach grass, just slightly behind us to our right and maybe 75 feet away from where we had been standing for half an hour. I felt like such a dope, the only consolation being that had we started to walk back we surely would have stumbled upon the bird. 

Because I don't go on pelagics, Pomarine Jaeger was one of those birds I never expected to add to my life list. To find one stationery on the ground, giving perfect views, was more than I could have wished for. Aside from breeding on the arctic tundra, these birds are supposed to spend all their time at sea, not loafing on a beach. Since the bird can fly, it doesn't appear that there is an injury or illness keeping it ashore.  This one is an immature bird according to coloration, but I don't imagine that it's too inexperienced to know it shouldn't be at Barnegat Lighthouse. 

We saw two more birders coming down the beach from the north and my friend was frantically waving at them to hurry up. The bird had stood by this time and raised its wings, giving us a looking at the white flashing beneath, a good field mark, but that also meant it might be restless. Just as they walked up, sure enough, the bird flew. They got an okay look at it in flight, but I wouldn't have been satisfied with it. They were getting ready to hunker down and wait for the bird to fly back in but their wait wasn't long because not 5 minutes passed before it came back in over the inlet and settled down about 25 feet from where we'd originally seen it. Life bird all around.

As I mentioned, I wasn't paying too much attention to the other birds, focused as I was on a lifer (another negative by-product of chasing), but on the way back, along the pool, we looked a little closer at what was about. 30 species for the 2 hours I was there. 

Brant  150
Canada Goose  10
Gadwall  1     Pool
Mallard  20
American Black Duck  1
Common Eider  3
Harlequin Duck  2
Long-tailed Duck  1
Bufflehead  1
Killdeer  1     Pool
Greater Yellowlegs  1     Pool
Sanderling  1
Dunlin  100
POMARINE JAEGER  1   
Laughing Gull  1
Ring-billed Gull  20
American Herring Gull  40
Great Black-backed Gull  15
Horned Grebe  1
Red-throated Loon  1
Common Loon  1
Snowy Egret  2     Exact count. Pool
American Crow  1
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1
Carolina Wren  1
House Sparrow  1
Snow Bunting  20
Savannah Sparrow  2
Song Sparrow  3
Yellow-rumped Warbler  10

November Kneecap I Mean Recap

American Bittern, Great Bay Blvd

For the second year in a row, Shari had knee surgery in November which limited my birding for more than half of the month, as she needed my assistance during her recovery, which is going all right now, thank you, but has been much rougher (read "painful") than last year's knee. Even when I felt it was safe enough to leave her for a while, I didn't go very far (Whitesbog, the Cranberry Bogs on Dover Rd, Colliers Mills) as I wanted to be fairly close in case of an emergency. 

I only added one year bird this month, a surprising female Purple Finch at our bird bath one morning. There have been a couple of very cool species along the shore this month--Cave Swallows in Point Pleasant and a Pomarine Jaeger flying back and forth between Barnegat Light & Island Beach, but I couldn't make the trips. It may be sour grapes, but often when I hear about a rarity and consider chasing, I think, "That's not birding, that's driving." It also helps to have a spotty memory. The last day of our October trip to Portugal and Spain there was a great rarity reported at Whitesbog that absolutely had me crippled with despair; the other day I couldn't even remember what the bird was, I had to look it up (Sage Thrasher). 

But I did have two happy sightings early in the month before Shari had to go under the knife (what an expression!). The day before the surgery I was down on Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton having a relatively uneventful yet pleasant morning when, as I was walking back to my car I glanced to my left, and there, across a little stream, was an American Bittern in classic beak-up pose, trying unsuccessfully to blend in with the reeds. It wasn't my first bittern of the year, but it was definitely the one I saw best and the only one I was able to photograph. 

The day after the election, I was moping around Whitesbog when I ran into my informant. We commiserated for a while then got back to the much more interesting topic of what we'd seen that day. He mentioned that in one of the old blueberry fields, which was now an empty reservoir, he'd seen an interesting sandpiper along with the Killdeer, snipe, and yellowlegs feeding there, but as he didn't have a scope, he couldn't make an ID. Since that field was only a few minutes from where I was parked, I drove up to it, set up my scope and found a very late White-rumped Sandpiper among the now-exposed blueberry bush stumps. It was the only "rarity" I listed this month, but satisfying as I (sort of) found it by myself. 

The bogs and reservoirs at Whitesbog remain drained for the most part but this morning as I passed the Lower Bog which does have some water in it, I saw my first Tundra Swans of the season. Normally, this time of year, with water in Union Pond and the other 3 bogs, you might find 20 or 30 of them. This year does not look promising for them. I almost felt bad for the 7 swans I later saw flying over the Ocean County side, looking for water and not finding it.

For the month 102 species--a very low count for November but sometimes the serious gets in the way of the silly. 

Counties birded: Burlington, Monmouth, Ocean

Species            First Sighting
Brant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Canada Goose   Jumping Brook Preserve
Mute Swan   Assunpink WMA
Tundra Swan   Whitesbog
Wood Duck   Jumping Brook Preserve
Gadwall   Lake Carasaljo
Mallard   Jumping Brook Preserve
American Black Duck   Reeves Bogs
Green-winged Teal   Jumping Brook Preserve
Ring-necked Duck   Lake Carasaljo
Lesser Scaup   Lake Carasaljo
Surf Scoter   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
White-winged Scoter   Great Bay Bvld
Black Scoter   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Long-tailed Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Bufflehead   Cedar Bonnet Island
Hooded Merganser   Lake Carasaljo
Ruddy Duck   Assunpink WMA
Mourning Dove   Whiting WMA
American Coot   Lake Carasaljo
American Oystercatcher   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Black-bellied Plover   Great Bay Bvld
Killdeer   Reeves Bogs
Wilson's Snipe   Reeves Bogs
Lesser Yellowlegs   Whitesbog
Greater Yellowlegs   Whitesbog
Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Sanderling   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Dunlin   Great Bay Bvld
White-rumped Sandpiper   Whitesbog
Laughing Gull   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Ring-billed Gull   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
American Herring Gull   Cedar Bonnet Island
Great Black-backed Gull   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Forster's Tern   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Royal Tern   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Pied-billed Grebe   Jumping Brook Preserve
Horned Grebe   Great Bay Bvld
Common Loon   Great Bay Bvld
Double-crested Cormorant   Assunpink WMA
American Bittern   Great Bay Bvld
Black-crowned Night Heron   Great Bay Bvld
Great Egret   Great Bay Bvld
Great Blue Heron   Whiting WMA
Black Vulture   Jumping Brook Preserve
Turkey Vulture   Whiting WMA
Sharp-shinned Hawk   Cedar Bonnet Island
Cooper's Hawk   Jumping Brook Preserve
Northern Harrier   Reeves Bogs
Bald Eagle   Jumping Brook Preserve
Red-shouldered Hawk   Reeves Bogs
Red-tailed Hawk   Assunpink WMA
Belted Kingfisher   Whiting WMA
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Pine Park
Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-bellied Woodpecker   Whiting WMA
Downy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd
Hairy Woodpecker   Jumping Brook Preserve
Northern Flicker   Reeves Bogs
American Kestrel   Cranberry Bogs
Merlin   Whitesbog
Eastern Phoebe   Jumping Brook Preserve
Blue Jay   Whiting WMA
American Crow   Whiting WMA
Fish Crow   Bayview Ave Marina
Common Raven   Whiting WMA
Carolina Chickadee   Whiting WMA
Tufted Titmouse   35 Sunset Rd
Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Whitesbog
Golden-crowned Kinglet   Whiting WMA
White-breasted Nuthatch   Whiting WMA
Red-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd
Brown Creeper   Lake Carasaljo
Winter Wren   Jumping Brook Preserve
Carolina Wren   35 Sunset Rd
European Starling   New Egypt
Gray Catbird   Assunpink WMA
Northern Mockingbird   Jumping Brook Preserve
Eastern Bluebird   Whiting WMA
Hermit Thrush   Whiting WMA
American Robin   35 Sunset Rd
House Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd
House Finch   Whiting WMA
Purple Finch   35 Sunset Rd
American Goldfinch   Jumping Brook Preserve
Snow Bunting   Great Bay Bvld
Chipping Sparrow   Whitesbog
Field Sparrow   Colliers Mills WMA
Fox Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd
Dark-eyed Junco   35 Sunset Rd
White-throated Sparrow   Jumping Brook Preserve
Savannah Sparrow   Assunpink WMA
Song Sparrow   Whiting WMA
Swamp Sparrow   Jumping Brook Preserve
Red-winged Blackbird   Jumping Brook Preserve
Brown-headed Cowbird   Lake Carasaljo
Rusty Blackbird   Reeves Bogs
Common Grackle   Lake Carasaljo
Boat-tailed Grackle   Bayview Ave Marina
Palm Warbler   Reeves Bogs
Yellow-rumped Warbler   Jumping Brook Preserve
Northern Cardinal   Jumping Brook Preserve

Objective Correlative

I hadn't been to the cranberry bogs in South Toms River for a few weeks, so I was glad to see that the park's administration (the bogs are part of Double Trouble Park which in turn is part of Brendan Byrne Forest) had put up a barrier to keep unauthorized vehicles out. It looked pretty solid to me, the concrete post sunk deep into the ground. I thought you'd need a bulldozer to damage it. 

Two hours later I was disheartened, disgusted, to see the barrier already pushed aside, the warning sign ripped off, and fresh tire tracks going up the hill. The rules don't apply in the Age of Trump. I know it's a stretch and it has been ever thus, but to me, this is the objective correlative of the state we're in and I don't mean New Jersey.  

Election Day at Assunpink

 A weird nostalgia brought me to Assunpink this morning because I remembered being there on an Election Day 10 years ago. It wasn't that I expected to find anything special there, and I hadn't 10 years ago either, according to my eBird report, but when I ponder the absolute mess we're in, I think back to a conversation I had with a young guy there while I was scoping the lake. He was off from work or school because of the "holiday" and was just hanging out "in nature." Curious as to what I was looking at, he started talking to me and I must have been in a decent mood because I answered his questions about the ducks and geese on the water. I wish I recalled how, but the conversation veered to evolution, and I gave him the quick, canned version of "birds are the last of the dinosaurs." 

"Dinosaurs," he said, "that was before Christ, wasn't it?" 

"Quite a while before," I affirmed, while thinking to myself:

And yet, you're allowed to vote.

The Rest of the Month

Greater White-front Goose (center) with Canada Geese, Mercer Corporate Park

After our Iberian sojourn, I spent the last half of October birding my favorite, close-by spots, knowing that I'd missed most of migration. The first day back I went to Whitesbog to find that almost every drop of water had been drained from the bogs--there were very few shorebirds there, but raptors big (Bald Eagle) and small (kestrel) were easy to find.  I returned to Whitesbog quite often the last two weeks, but finally had to admit I was getting diminishing returns.

Solitary Sandpiper, Colliers Mills

Mostly I went to old cranberry bogs and looked for what wasn't supposed to be there and most of the time I only found what was supposed to be there. A walk around Colliers Mills though, did make me happy, when I was able to find my old friend the Red-headed Woodpecker without having to look hard, a big flock of Rusty Blackbirds in a dried-up pond, and a very late, not supposed to be there, Solitary Sandpiper in yet another body of non-water.  

Everywhere I went, whether it was the cranberry bogs in South Toms River, Double Trouble, Cloverdale Farm, or even the Manasquan Reservoir, water was either low or pretending to be mud--obviously we're in a severe drought that will seemingly take a month of heavy rain to alleviate. 

Today, the last day of the month, I found my latest year bird, a Greater White-fronted Goose in the Mercer Corporate Park. I'd spent the morning at Assunpink (again, nothing out of the ordinary) and then swung by the MCP. This used to be a great place to stop off and look for rarities, but a couple of years ago the owners put up No Trespassing signs and the hot spot fell off the rarity radar, so I was surprised to see this bird show up on one of the alerts. I've seen Greater White-fronted there in the past, so it wasn't that unusual. I pulled into the driveway and stopped just before the Keep Out signs and scanned the first pond, which had about 500 Canada Geese in it. That's always discouraging, but the Greater White-fronted's pink/orange bill popped out of the surrounding geese and I was able to get one mediocre photo before a security guard pulled up and politely told me to scram. 

With the Eurasian Wigeon and the Nelson's Sparrow found earlier, that made 3 year-birds for the 17 days of NJ birding. After wandering around Spain and Portugal for two weeks, I couldn't work up a lot of interest in local rarities.

For the rest of the month, I found 106 species spread out over Atlantic, Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties. 

Species                         First Sighting
Greater White-fronted Goose   Mercer Corporate Park
Canada Goose   Whitesbog
Mute Swan   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Wood Duck   Cranberry Bogs
Northern Shoveler   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Gadwall   Holly Lake
Eurasian Wigeon   Marshall's Pond
American Wigeon   Marshall's Pond
Mallard   Cranberry Bogs
American Black Duck   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Northern Pintail   Brig
Green-winged Teal   Whitesbog
Ring-necked Duck   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Bufflehead   Browns Woods
Hooded Merganser   Brig
Ruddy Duck   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Rock Pigeon   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Mourning Dove   Cranberry Bogs
Clapper Rail   Great Bay Blvd
American Coot   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Black-bellied Plover   Great Bay Blvd
Killdeer   Whitesbog
Semipalmated Plover   Whitesbog
Wilson's Snipe   Cranberry Bogs
Solitary Sandpiper   Colliers Mills WMA
Lesser Yellowlegs   Whitesbog
Greater Yellowlegs   Whitesbog
Ruddy Turnstone   Great Bay Blvd
Dunlin   Great Bay Blvd
Semipalmated Sandpiper   Brig
Laughing Gull   Barnegat Municipal Dock
Ring-billed Gull   Brig
American Herring Gull   Whitesbog
Forster's Tern   Great Bay Blvd
Royal Tern   Barnegat Municipal Dock
Pied-billed Grebe   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Double-crested Cormorant   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Black-crowned Night Heron   Great Bay Blvd
Tricolored Heron   Manahawkin WMA
Snowy Egret   Great Bay Blvd
Great Egret   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Great Blue Heron   Whitesbog
Black Vulture   35 Sunset Rd
Turkey Vulture   Whitesbog
Osprey   Whitesbog
Sharp-shinned Hawk   Whitesbog
Cooper's Hawk   Cranberry Bogs
Northern Harrier   Double Trouble SP
Bald Eagle   Whitesbog
Red-shouldered Hawk   Whitesbog
Red-tailed Hawk   Colliers Mills WMA
Belted Kingfisher   Whitesbog
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Double Trouble SP
Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-bellied Woodpecker   Cranberry Bogs
Downy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd
Hairy Woodpecker   Whitesbog
Northern Flicker   Whitesbog
American Kestrel   Whitesbog
Merlin   Cranberry Bogs
Peregrine Falcon   Manasquan Reservoir IBA
Eastern Phoebe   Whitesbog
Blue-headed Vireo   Great Bay Blvd
Blue Jay   35 Sunset Rd
American Crow   35 Sunset Rd
Fish Crow   Brig
Common Raven   Whitesbog
Carolina Chickadee   35 Sunset Rd
Tufted Titmouse   35 Sunset Rd
Tree Swallow   Whitesbog
Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Whitesbog
Golden-crowned Kinglet   Whitesbog
White-breasted Nuthatch   Whitesbog
Red-breasted Nuthatch   Whitesbog
Winter Wren   Cranberry Bogs
Carolina Wren   35 Sunset Rd
European Starling   Whitesbog
Gray Catbird   Whitesbog
Northern Mockingbird   35 Sunset Rd
Eastern Bluebird   Whitesbog
Hermit Thrush   Great Bay Blvd
American Robin   Whitesbog
House Sparrow   Assunpink WMA
House Finch   Whitesbog
American Goldfinch   Whitesbog
Chipping Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd
Field Sparrow   Cranberry Bogs
Dark-eyed Junco   Cranberry Bogs
White-throated Sparrow   Cranberry Bogs
Seaside Sparrow   Great Bay Blvd
Nelson's Sparrow   Great Bay Blvd
Savannah Sparrow   Whitesbog
Song Sparrow   Whitesbog
Swamp Sparrow   Whitesbog
Eastern Towhee   Whitesbog
Eastern Meadowlark   Brig
Baltimore Oriole   35 Sunset Rd
Red-winged Blackbird   Whitesbog
Rusty Blackbird   Colliers Mills WMA
Common Grackle   Whitesbog
Boat-tailed Grackle   Great Bay Blvd
Blackpoll Warbler   Cattus Island County Park
Palm Warbler   Whitesbog
Pine Warbler   Whitesbog
Yellow-rumped Warbler   Whitesbog
Northern Cardinal   Whitesbog

Peregrine Falcon, Brig

Marshall's Pond 10/24--Eurasian Wigeon

Eurasian Wigeon

I spent two weeks in Portugal and Spain--did I see a Eurasian Wigeon in its home waters among all the Mallards, Gadwalls, shovelers, and teal?  No I did not. Instead, I had to go to a retention pond next to a shopping center in Toms River to find my find Eurasian Wigeon of the year and frankly, I'm happier seeing it 10 miles from home than I would have been had I ticked it off in Europe. 

That rather elongated pond which runs the length of the parking lot and then back toward some private houses has an inexplicable history of attracting rarities; this isn't the first Eurasian Wigeon I've seen there, though it was my best sighting. In the past, the birds I've seen there have been at the east end of the pond where the viewpoint is not ideal, and the sun is directly in your eyes in the morning. Today, it was overcast and the bird was in the middle of the pond toward the west end. It took me about 3 minutes to find it--there weren't that many ducks or geese to sort through and its red head and gray flanks just popped out against the surrounding American Wigeon. 

I usually have seen a Eurasian Wigeon well before October. For a number of years, one was faithfully showing up on the Shark River where you could get distant but decent view of it. This year, the bird did not show up. Or sometimes one would be on one of the ponds around Belmar, Avon, or Spring Lake--again, not this year. 

After seeing the wigeons I drove over to Shelter Cove and then to Cattus Island. It was pretty windy at Cattus and I was debating whether, given the dearth of birds I was finding, assuming they were all hunkering down, whether it was worth a walk around Scout Island. I decided to go over the boardwalk there and it was a good decision, because one of the warblers I saw was not the expected Yellow-rump but a Blackpoll Warbler, a bird, that looks very different in non-breeding plumage than in the spring--but the little yellow feet were the dead giveaway and let me eliminate the very similar Bay-breasted Warbler as a possibility. It even stayed still long enough for one photograph. 

Blackpoll Warbler

Great Bay Blvd 10/21--Nelson's Sparrow

                                               Gee, but it's great to be back home!

                                                                                                         --Paul Simon

Nelson's Sparrow (for the moment)

For the last week or so I've been very happy to go to my usual birding haunts like Whitesbog, Colliers Mills, and the old cranberry bogs in South Toms River (where I was surprised to find all the derelict buildings had been torn down--my first thought, "Where will the Barn Swallows nest?). Today, I took a little longer drive down to Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton. Autumn is a good time down there to look for odd sparrows and probably the best place around to find Nelson's Sparrow, though it isn't easy. (Aside: Poor Nelson, whoever he was, is going to lose his eponymous bird which was only recently split off from Saltmarsh Sparrow because of the silly "No Eponyms" rule that is being introduced though no announcements of any new names have been made yet. Fame is fleeting.)

The place to look for them is at the inlet and the best time is when the tide is high, giving the little buggers less acreage to inhabit. The tide seemed pretty high when I got there, and sparrows were diving into the spartina wherever I walked but I couldn't get even a lousy look at them to see if they were Nelson's. The sparrows that did stay still were all Song Sparrows so my trudging back and forth on the sand yielded no target bird or even its cousins like Seaside Sparrow or Saltmarsh. 

It is my custom after walking on the beach to walk the road north, usually up to the first wooden bridge. It's a better way to find birds than cruising along in the car. I found plenty of Black-bellied Plovers and Greater Yellowlegs, a couple of Palm Warblers, and the common sparrows. I even found one Seaside Sparrow out in the marsh. But it was a total accident when, looking a couple of Great Egrets and a Great Blue Heron out in the marsh, I saw in the reeds about half the distance to the big birds a sparrow with an orange and gray face--I took pictures but they didn't show the field mark I was looking for (a blurry chest) but I did manage to see it once when the wind turned the sparrow, clinging to a stalk, my way. I was pretty surprised since I can't recall ever finding a Nelson's that wasn't scampering around near the water. 

Hermit Thrush

The other species that caught my attention were the big numbers of Forster's Terns still around, especially the big flock that flew by and roosted near the Rutgers buildings, a Blue-headed Vireo at one of the bridges where the night-herons roost, and a Hermit Thrush that was in the sparrow spot at 700 Great Bay Blvd. In all, 35 species for the day.

American Black Duck  1
Clapper Rail  3
Black-bellied Plover  185
Lesser Yellowlegs  2
Greater Yellowlegs  55
Ruddy Turnstone  3
Dunlin  9
Herring Gull  30
Forster's Tern  50
Double-crested Cormorant  12
Black-crowned Night Heron  15
Snowy Egret  6
Great Egret  15
Great Blue Heron  5
Osprey  1
Belted Kingfisher  3
Blue-headed Vireo  1
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  1
Tree Swallow  40
Carolina Wren  1
European Starling  150
Hermit Thrush  1
House Finch  20
Field Sparrow  1
Dark-eyed Junco  1
White-throated Sparrow  8
Seaside Sparrow  1
Nelson's Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  9
Swamp Sparrow  1
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Boat-tailed Grackle  50
Palm Warbler  2
Yellow-rumped Warbler  7

Ruddy Turnstone