We started out in Seven Presidents Park in Long Branch. I was hoping for alcids on the ocean or crossbills in the pine trees. I was really hoping for a Dovekie, a little football shaped alcid that normally you have to go out a pelagic to find. This winter though Dovekies have been seen close to shore a number of times and there was even a large "wreck" of them a few days ago down in Cape May. Shari has seen Dovekies out on the open sea. I don't go out on the open sea, so it would be (and alas, still will be) a life bird for me.
As soon as I got out of the car at the park my reaction was, "This is a mistake." It was just at the freezing mark and the wind was stiff and seemingly in my face no matter which way I turned. After a quick look at the trees around the parking lot (a couple of years we did see crossbills here), I got the scope and headed for the beach with much trepidation.
It wasn't bad there, surprisingly. Less wind on the edge of the sea than in the parking lot. A couple of other birders were there, also hoping for Dovekies. We scoped for about an hour and spotted no Dovekies. Shari, however, did find an alcid--a Razorbill floating in the trough of the waves and diving just when the binoculars were focused. But we did get good enough looks at it to definitely call it. And one of the guys on the beach came up to say he'd just seen a Razorbill, right where we'd been looking.
Loons were the bird of abundance today, both Red-throated and Common. At all our stops at the ocean views we found loons wherever we looked. At Seven Presidents the only ducks we saw on the ocean were a few Red-breasted Mergansers and one Long-tailed Duck. I watched a Northern Gannet fly for a while so I could memorize its wing beat pattern--flap flap flap, glide.
Next stop was Roosevelt Avenue in the tony beach town of Deal. The homes there are so ridiculously ostentatious, mansions that look like institutions, entrances that look like the gates to a park or a cemetery, that you can only start laughing after a while. If those are 2nd homes, what do their first homes look like?
At the overlook there we met a couple of other birders. Jim asked if we'd seen the Glaucous Gull and it was only then that I remembered that one had been reported there a couple of times in the last week. We looked through the flocks of gulls sitting on the jetty but didn't come with any when another birder joined us and asked if we'd seen the crossbills in the pine trees along the street. Of course we hadn't and we rushed to the street, checking every tree and came up empty. I told him I wished he hadn't mentioned it. He felt bad that he hadn't called us right away. I felt worse when I saw on Jerseybirds that after we left Jim spotted the Glaucous Gull.
At our next stop, the amusingly named Clem Conover Road, we got lucky. Scanning the ocean I saw nothing but loons and gulls again, save for a lone Ruddy Duck. But Shari thought she saw activity in one of the false cedars. We found nothing, again, but suddenly one bird flew out of a backyard, calling "tch, tch" and flying like a finch--which it was: a Red Crossbill FOY. Crossbills are interesting because there are potentially 9 species that can be carved out of the Red Crossbill type--they can be separated by their calls if you're really really good. I was happy that the little studying I did on their calls allowed me to identify the bird--whether it was Type 3, Type 7, Type 9, I don't know and until they are separate species, I have to admit, I don't care.
Our last stop, after encountering a number of road blocks due to Sandy, including the raised drawbridge over the Shark River Inlet, was in Belmar where we scoped the river from a number of vantage points, finding a lot of Brants, one each of cormorant and both loons and many winter ducks, the most interesting being the last ones we saw, 10 American Wigeons.
We could have continued south down to the Manasquan Inlet, but it wasn't getting any warmer and the sunny day suddenly became overcast, so we headed home. Two rare birds is a pretty good day.
For the day we totaled 29 species at: Seven Presidents Park, Deal--Roosevelt Avenue, Deal--Clem Conover Road, Loch Arbour, and the Shark River.
Brant 550
|
Canada Goose 25
|
Mute Swan 18
|
American Wigeon 10
|
American Black Duck 25
|
Mallard 13
|
Long-tailed Duck 1
|
Bufflehead 100
|
Hooded Merganser 50
|
Red-breasted Merganser
18
|
Ruddy Duck 11
|
Red-throated Loon 6
|
Common Loon 2
|
Northern Gannet 1
|
Double-crested Cormorant
1
|
Turkey Vulture 1
|
Sanderling 25
|
Bonaparte's Gull 1
|
Ring-billed Gull 600
|
Herring Gull 600
|
Great Black-backed Gull
100
|
Razorbill 1
|
Rock Pigeon 1
|
American Crow 5
|
European Starling 25
|
Yellow-rumped Warbler
1
|
Song Sparrow 1
|
Common Grackle 1
|
Red Crossbill 1
|
No comments:
Post a Comment