Brigantine 2/26

Yesterday was much too windy to do any serious birding, but the winds almost completely died down today, so we drove the 8 mile circuit around Brig. "Best" bird was just about the first bird we saw--a Horned Lark sitting in a small tree across the water from the Gull Pond Tower. I've seen larks in lots of places, but this is my first Jersey lark.

The non-bird of the day was this Brown Bat (I believe) hanging from the eaves over the men's room outhouse.

All photos: Shari Zirlin

Cute, in a creepy kind of way. 

As expected, most of what we saw were ducks, geese, and swans. 

Here is the proverbial "mixed flock."

As always, it's what we don't see that intrigues me: No cormorants for instance. Didn't see any in Delaware last week either. What gives? No Dunlins, yellowlegs, or turnstones. It was low tide, I'd expect to find them. We did come across one Killdeer just before Jen's Trail, about 2/3 of the way around the drive.

On the Brig checklist, Killdeer is listed as "Rare" in winter. But the list has entries for Oldsquaw, Green-backed Heron, and Northern Oriole, so it may be a wee bit out of date. 

Afterward we had lunch in nearby "Historic Smithville," which is a phony town patched together with old buildings salvaged from all over south Jersey. They have a resident flock of Graylag and barnyard geese, not countable, of course. However, they are amusing, importuning any new arrival to the parking lot for food.

Our list for the day:

30 species
Snow Goose  1500
Canada Goose  100
Mute Swan  2
Tundra Swan  10
Gadwall  20
American Wigeon  2
American Black Duck  200
Mallard  50
Northern Shoveler  100
Northern Pintail  200
Green-winged Teal  25
Bufflehead  20
Hooded Merganser  8
Red-breasted Merganser  5
Great Blue Heron  4
Turkey Vulture  7
Northern Harrier  4
Red-tailed Hawk  1    Jen's Trail
Peregrine Falcon  1    On its tower
American Coot  30
Killdeer  1
Ring-billed Gull  15
Herring Gull  5
Great Black-backed Gull  2
Downy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  1
Horned Lark  1    from Gull Pond Tower parking lot
Carolina Chickadee  1    Jen's Trail
Red-winged Blackbird  2