Brig & Batsto

Photo: Shari Zirlin

We were finally able to do some serious birding this month. We drove down to Brigantine and added some new birds for the year--mostly waterfowl but the highlight was the very well camouflaged BARRED OWL another birder pointed out to us.  This was my first Jersey Barred Owl. I've only encountered them in my friends' woods up in Massachusetts. Other interesting birds @ Brig were Tundra Swans, Snow Geese and Northern Pintails.

We had hoped to find Rough-legged Hawk there; everyone else has, it seems, but there was no luck with that species--possibly a raptor that flew past us and then was obscured by trees, but neither of us got even a quarter-way decent look at it. The owl was a happy substitute for the miss.

Instead of going around the 8 mile drive again we decided to go to Batsto Village about 15 miles northwest of Brig. We've passed the sign for it every time we've gone to Brig and just the name alone, pronounced explosively--Bat-STO--has made us want to visit but usually we're too tired to work up the ambition. Today we had enough energy--just the fact that there was virtually no snow on the ground seem to energize Shari.

Batsto Village is a restored iron foundry town in the Pine Barrens that was originally started prior to the Revolutionary War.  They made the bullets and buckets for George Washington. It continued make iron, then window glass up to the 1870's, with the foundry (& town) changing hands a couple of times. They seem to like to buy and sell entire towns in south Jersey  http://tinyurl.com/6cq68om . Eventually Joseph Wharton bought the whole town and a huge chunk of the Pine Barrens with plans to dam all the streams and rivers and sell the water to Camden and Philadelphia. That didn't work out, so instead he kept the town and ran it, judging from some of the rules posted, as a benign prison camp. The place is similar to the other preserved iron foundry town farther north in Allaire State Park, but it seems like many more buildings have been preserved--along with Wharton's mansion. My favorite tidbit of information was that he had the entrance to the town's general store moved so that it faced away from the house. He didn't want to see the serfs going about their business.

Photo: Shari Zirlin

The day was topped off with a BALD EAGLE we saw perched in a tree next to what I believe was the Mullica River. So, first bird owl, last bird eagle. Full lists for a decent day of birding:

E. B. Forsythe NWR--Wildlife Drive
Number of species: 25 

Snow Goose    1200
Brant    600
Canada Goose    175
Tundra Swan    24
Gadwall    5
American Black Duck    500
Mallard    15
Northern Shoveler    5
Northern Pintail    50
Bufflehead    60
Hooded Merganser    1
Common Merganser    4    Experimental Pond
Ruddy Duck    1
Great Blue Heron    1
Turkey Vulture    2
Northern Harrier    2
Peregrine Falcon    1
Ring-billed Gull    100
Herring Gull    100
Great Black-backed Gull    2

American Crow   8
Barred Owl    1    Gull Pond
Carolina Chickadee    1
Tufted Titmouse    2
Yellow-rumped Warbler    2
Batsto Village
Number of species:    9

Canada Goose   14
American Black Duck    3
Ring-necked Duck    31
Pied-billed Grebe    2
Great Blue Heron    1
Red-bellied Woodpecker    1
Carolina Chickadee    2
Red-breasted Nuthatch    1
Dark-eyed Junco    12

County Rd 542
Number of species:    1
Bald Eagle    1    In tree next to river