Mount Loretto 12/11--Some Interesting Finds

A bit more than 2 hours in Mount Loretto Unique Area yielded some surprises.  Since they recently mowed the fields, I was able to "work the edges" as the birding books like to say, walking along and looking into the tangles and woods that I usually don't get to. I was gad to glimpse a Brown Thrasher sitting on a branch before it dove into the underbrush, not to be found again, while a lingering Gray Catbird was still in the same general area as one had been last month. With the couple of mockingbirds present, I achieved the mimid hat trick.

An abundance of ducks were on Raritan Bay, along with a long and a couple of grebes. No cormorants again--very surprising. I wished I had had my scope with me because some ducks were just too far out on the water to readily identify, especially a couple that were just tantalizingly at the limits of my binoculars that looked like Common Goldeneyes, but I just couldn't quite make out the facial pattern and so had to let them go.

Full day list:

12/11/10
Notes:    Ponds frozen. All ducks in Raritan Bay
Number of species:    27
Brant    125    Raritan Bay
Canada Goose    150    All F/O
Mute Swan    3    Raritan Bay
Gadwall    7
American Wigeon    2
American Black Duck    75
Mallard    1
Long-tailed Duck    1    Past Lemon Creek Pier
Bufflehead    4
Red-breasted Merganser    3
Red-throated Loon    1
Horned Grebe    2
Ring-billed Gull    30
Herring Gull    1
Great Black-backed Gull    1    On piling near Lemon Creek Park
Downy Woodpecker    2
Northern Flicker    1
Blue Jay    6
Black-capped Chickadee    7
Carolina Wren    4
Gray Catbird    1
Northern Mockingbird    2
Brown Thrasher    1
European Starling    35
Song Sparrow    3
White-throated Sparrow    5
Northern Cardinal    5