We're going on another NJ Audubon field trip to Brig tomorrow, so this week I was thinking of the possible rare birds for New Jersey that could show up there this time of year. It also had to be a species I haven't seen in the state. Reddish Egret seemed the most likely of the unlikely. It was as if I called it in, because yesterday a juvenile REEG was found feeding near the dogleg on the Wildlife Drive, a spot that seems to be a magnet for rarities. I promise to use this power only for good.
Even though we're going tomorrow, Shari & I drove down there this afternoon, hoping to get the egret before it disappeared. It had moved overnight to a stand of cedars on the south dike, roosting with a mixed flock of egrets and one Great Blue Heron. At first we could only see its feet and a part of its lower body, the rest of the bird obscured by a branch, but then it stuck its head up briefly and we got an okay look. There was a small group scoping out the bird and someone decided that driving farther down the road would present a better angle to view the bird. Whoever thought that was right. A Peregrine Falcon landing on top of the tree also helped to stir up the birds and we found the egret in plain sight, standing up on a limb. The white egrets didn't seem to like either the falcon or the Reddish Egret in their tree. Interlopers to their quiet neighborhood.
Reddish Egret is certainly not a life bird for us; we've seen them multiple times in both Florida and Texas, including the white morph (and try explaining to a non-birder why a white bird is a Reddish Egret). But we haven't seen one in a few years and it's a good looking bird to find, even in rather bland juvenile plumage.
Now, tomorrow, when everyone else is angsting about seeing the rarity, we'll already have seen it and can concentrate on the other 80 or so species to be found there. Today we had the Reddish Egret as our target bird and everything else was gravy. We didn't even look at anything until we were 1.2 miles up the drive, the last place it had been reported. Still, the Wildlife Drive is one way, so we had to complete the 8 mile loop. Along the way we picked up 34 more species. Tomorrow, we'll take longer and I'm sure, with expert help, find way more species than our quick run around the impoundments yielded today.
The common name "Reddish Egret" amuses me. It isn't a "Red Egret." We don't want to commit that strongly to the color. Let's just settle on reddish and let it go at that.
35 species:
Canada Goose 15
Mallard 4
Double-crested Cormorant 110
Great Blue Heron 2
Great Egret 150
Snowy Egret 50
Reddish Egret 1 In cedar, south dike, just past tower, with many egrets and a GBHE
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1
Glossy Ibis 4
Turkey Vulture 1
Osprey 6
Black-bellied Plover 100
Semipalmated Plover 10
Greater Yellowlegs 30
Semipalmated Sandpiper 10
Short-billed Dowitcher 5
Laughing Gull 300
Herring Gull 100
Great Black-backed Gull 5
Caspian Tern 2
Forster's Tern 100
Royal Tern 3
Black Skimmer 35
Peregrine Falcon 1
Blue Jay 2 Heard
Fish Crow 5
Barn Swallow 2
House Wren 1 Heard
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 2
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 40
Saltmarsh Sparrow 1
Seaside Sparrow 3
Red-winged Blackbird 5
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