Duke Island Park 12/18--Greater White-fronted Goose

This rarity for New Jersey had been reported for the last couple of weeks, but I hadn't seen any recent reports. I thought, though, that perhaps everyone who wanted to see it had already seen it--except me, so we drove up to Somerset County this morning with the goose as an objective. But first we drove a triangle in Franklin Township made up of Randolph Road, Schoolhouse Road, and Weston Canal Road, hoping to find 5 Sandhill Cranes that have been reported there on & off recently. No luck there, but we did see 2 Peregrine Falcons first hunting the corn stubble of a field then sitting in 2 trees.

I was also curious to go up that way because I saw on the map that the town of Manville was in the area. When I was a kid, living in Newark, my mother's brother & his family moved out to Manville and we occasionally visited them there. To me and my 3 brothers it seemed like the end of the earth. They lived in a recently built development which was an island in what was otherwise endless fields. I have 3 distinct memories of Manville:
1) It was the first place I every saw the huge tents of tent caterpillars. I thought they were creepy then and I still do
2) It was so desolate there that from my uncle's backyard you could watch little planes take off from a nearby field and then follow the descent of parachutists as they jumped from the plane.
3) It was the first time I ever saw a woman (my aunt) drink beer.

Manville today, no surprise, is a lot more built up than my memories of it from a half-century ago.

So after that brief trip down memory lane, we found Duke Island Park and headed for the river. We had to fight a lot of sun glare coming off the water, but after sorting through about 500 Canada Geese and a few Mallards, Shari called out that she had it. Once she found it, there was no question that it was a Greater White-fronted Goose (we've seen them a couple of times in Texas): White ring at the base of the bill (hence the name) a pinkish-orange bill, and a dark head with no chin strap. So, it was another quality over quantity kind of day.
All 10 species for the day:
Greater White-fronted Goose  1
Canada Goose     500
Mallard 10
Peregrine Falcon  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Downy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay   3
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Northern Mockingbird   2
Song Sparrow  1