Salem County 3/23--Tufted Duck, Eastern Meadowlark

Chasing today brought us to Thundergust Lake in Parvin State Park over in Salem County. Roll that one around in your mouth for a moment: Thundergust Lake. New Jersey does not seem like a place that would have a Thundergust Lake--someplace like the wilds of Oregon seems more appropriate. And a narrow middling-sized pond it was. But yesterday, a Tufted Duck, a rare visitor from Europe related to ring-necks and scaups, was found there in  a small mixed flock of its cousins and it was still there this morning when we drove down into what I consider the hinterlands of New Jersey.

We'd never birded Salem County before. My entire Salem County list consisted of Common Grackle from a rest stop on the Turnpike.  Its place names have always seemed distant and exotic to me: Mannington Marsh, Husted Landing, Featherbed Lane. Looking on a map they all seemed to be on back roads off of back roads, running through land that hovered just on the edge of being dry. So this bird was a good excuse to at least drive down there.

Of course, we weren't the only ones there. The usual line up of scopes was on the scene and we wedged ourselves in there and with some help got on this beautiful bird (which was too far away to get any decent pictures). It wasn't a life bird for us; last year in Puerto Rico, of all places, we saw a hen Tufted Duck in Laguna Cartegna, which was really rare. But, at the risk of sounding chauvinistic, seeing a female of a sexually dimorphic species is not as satisfying as seeing the male. When I go to see a Tufted Duck, I want to see its tuft (females have tiny ones). This one's tuft was quite obvious when the breeze blew it around like a bad comb-over on a bald guy.

But after we watched the bird a while, the question was what to do next.  It turned out that among the birders there this morning were Joe & Elizabeth, who'd we spent an afternoon at Sandy Hook in September, looking fruitlessly for an Elegant Tern. They knew their way around the county and with another couple, Jonathan and Tia, we formed an impromptu field trip caravan. Our hope was to find a couple of county rarities that had been reported the last few weeks--a Crested Caracara and Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

Our first stop was Kings Highway in Pilesgrove (great names down in Salem County!). Huge mixed flocks of blackbirds were in the fields and the cattle feed lots and we hoped for Yellow-headed Blackbird. It may have been in there, but the birds shift and shuffle and seem very skittish (no doubt, hawks play a part in their nervousness) and while we looked for them there and on Featherbed Lane, which wasn't so exotic once we got there, just another farm road, we didn't find that bird or the caracara.

Kings Highway, Pilesgrove
Photo: Shari Zirlin

After lunch Elizabeth and Joe led us to Mannington Marsh which is in the Salem River WRA. Sandhill Cranes are often reported here, but we got the "just missed 'em" response from a photographer on the observation platform. Three months ago this would have been a teeth-grinder for me, but now that we've seen them a number of times just 15 miles from here in New Egypt, it is just another good bird that we didn't see today, oh well.

What we did see were lots of ducks and a couple of immature Bald Eagles that were either practicing mid-air mating or trying to kill each other--or both for all I know about eagle behavior. It was a fascinating display of aerial acrobatics as they flew around each other, sometimes upside down, trying to lock claws.

We decided to give Kings Highway and Featherbed Lane another try and while we had no more success than the first time, on Featherbed Lane we did find a couple of Northern Harriers, including a striking "gray ghost," an enormous flock of Snow Geese which flew directly overhead as they were chased by a couple of eagles, and best of all, our FOY Eastern Meadowlarks, singing in the field with one flying across the road, affording excellent views.

With that we called it a day and with the GPS guiding us home (truly, we had no idea where we were) we left no-longer-so-mysterious Salem County. For the day we found 29 species:

Species          Count    Location

Snow Goose   3000    Featherbed Ln, Pilesgrove

Canada Goose   4    Parvin SP--Beach Area

Mute Swan   20    Salem River WRA

Wood Duck   1    Salem River WRA

Gadwall   4    Salem River WRA

American Wigeon   1    Salem River WRA

American Black Duck   40    Salem River WRA

Mallard   20    Salem River WRA

Northern Shoveler   2    Salem River WRA

Green-winged Teal   4    Salem River WRA

Ring-necked Duck   20    Parvin SP--Thundergust Lake

Tufted Duck   1    Parvin SP--Thundergust Lake

Lesser Scaup   1    Parvin SP--Thundergust Lake

Bufflehead   1    Parvin SP--Beach Area

Double-crested Cormorant   25    Salem River WRA

Great Blue Heron   3    Salem River WRA

Turkey Vulture   5    Featherbed Ln, Pilesgrove

Northern Harrier   2    Featherbed Ln, Pilesgrove

Bald Eagle   2    Salem River WRA

Red-tailed Hawk   1    Featherbed Ln, Pilesgrove

American Coot   50    Salem River WRA

American Kestrel   1    Haines Neck Rd, Mannington

Carolina Wren   1    Parvin SP--Thundergust Lake

European Starling   150    Kings Hwy, Pilesgrove

Song Sparrow   2    Salem River WRA

Red-winged Blackbird   150    Kings Hwy, Pilesgrove

Eastern Meadowlark   2    Featherbed Ln, Pilesgrove

Common Grackle   100    Kings Hwy, Pilesgrove

Brown-headed Cowbird   1    Kings Hwy, Pilesgrove