We took our somewhat monthly NJ Audubon field trip today with Pete Bacinski & Mike Mandracchia--last month's trip was wiped out by the government shutdown, thank you Tea Party.
I was prepared for cold conditions; as it turned out, I didn't even wear gloves today. No wind made viewing the thousands of ducks relatively easy--no frozen tears to deal with. After getting off to a roaring start at the Gull Pond--many ducks, an eagle, harriers--our little caravan was called over at the start of the Wildlife Drive by a birder Pete knew. He had a species of sparrow that I've been looking for all autumn, fruitlessly, down at Tuckerton--NELSON'S SPARROW. I've been searching for it so hard the last couple of months because it would be a life bird for us and although Tuckerton is the place in NJ for this species, I had no luck with it until today when Mike spotted a couple in the reeds. At first I only saw one briefly--not enough of a look to count it, but after some dedicated pishing by the group two soon made their appearance and I was able to get nice clear looks at both of them, and, bonus, compare them to a Saltmarsh Sparrow also in the vicinity. Until fairly recently, Saltmarsh and Nelson's were considered a single species, so I suppose back in my early days of birding at Jamaica Bay I may have seen this version, but if you see something and don't know what it is you haven't seen it is my philosophy. Just to add to the confusion, until even more recently, these sparrows both "Sharp-tailed" in the middle of their common names. Happily, the nomenclature has been simplified.
So, now that I'd seen the bird, the trick was to get Shari onto it. Looking into a marshy area of tall grass and reeds does not provide any decent landmarks. Saying,"look in the darker area before the channel," or "where the reeds are tan, not brown," is really frustrating to the person who wants to see the bird. Pointing with your finger doesn't help either. There are two ways the person is going to find the bird: luck or if the bird moves and she can follow it to its next stop. The latter happened, the bird clung to a reed for a while, Shari saw all the relevant field marks and we were all happy. I think it was a life bird for 5 of us on the trip.
Another interesting bird today, FOS, was Tundra Swan. Good to see them back for the winter. Shorebirds, aside from thousands of Dunlin, were scarce, though we did have a few yellowlegs, one Black-bellied Plover that I found among a flock of Dunlin, and a Western Sandpiper by the Gull Tower, feeding between the legs of a goose.
When we gathered for lunch the South Jersey bird text messaging service had some hot birds that we'd missed--Hudsonian Godwit and Eurasian Wigeon. Plus, one of the guys on our trip had seen a Common Goldeneye that we passed. It is hard to stop the line of cars if you aren't the leader. So we had some targets for the second trip around the dikes. The godwit, which was seen at the Gull Tower had flown, but Pete was determined to find the Eurasian Wigeon and once he located the flock of American Wigeons in the East Pool he went through each duck until he found the rare one--a wigeon with a red head and gray body instead of gray head and brown body. We hadn't seen a Eurasian Wigeon in some time and this sighting made up for the frustration of last week's trip to Cape May when looked too late for the bird that had been in the Lightouse Pond.
While we were on the road, another report came in of Lapland Longspur. We drove to the reported spot but it wasn't to be found. The problem with lonspurs is that they like dirt or stubble. The only place on the Wildlife Drive for a longspur is the road. The problem with the road is cars. The report said it was repeatedly flushed by traffic but kept returning. By the time we got there, it must have gotten sick of the disturbance. However, later, on Pete's third trip around, he did find the longspur. We considered going with him to try for it (haven't seen one of those in years either) but somehow a cup of Wawa coffee seemed more appealing than another 8 mile drive. "And you call yourself a birding fanatic?"
For the day we had 60 species and with a life bird finally ticked, I'm not going to dwell on the ones that eluded us.
Brant 9
Canada Goose 300
Mute Swan 10
Tundra Swan 15
Gadwall 5
Eurasian Wigeon 1
American Wigeon 20
American Black Duck 200
Mallard 10
Northern Shoveler 25
Northern Pintail 500
Green-winged Teal 10
Ring-necked Duck 1 Entrance Pond
Greater Scaup 50
Bufflehead 25
Hooded Merganser 10
Ruddy Duck 35
Common Loon 1
Horned Grebe 3
Double-crested Cormorant 10
Great Blue Heron 5
Great Egret 4
Snowy Egret 3
Little Blue Heron 1 At turn from South Dike to East Dike
Black-crowned Night-Heron 2 At turn from South Dike to East Dike
Turkey Vulture 1 Over Lily Lake
Northern Harrier 4
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Bald Eagle 3 two immatures circling while an adult flew by with prey in its talons.
Red-tailed Hawk 2
American Coot 10
Black-bellied Plover 1
Greater Yellowlegs 10
Dunlin 2000
Western Sandpiper 1
Ring-billed Gull 2
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 5
Peregrine Falcon 2
Blue Jay 1 Heard
American Crow 2 Heard
Tree Swallow 3
Carolina Chickadee 1 Heard picnic tables.
Tufted Titmouse 1 Heard picnic tables
Carolina Wren 2 Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Bluebird 2
American Robin 1 Lily Lake
Yellow-rumped Warbler 15
Savannah Sparrow 5
NELSON'S SPARROW 2
Saltmarsh Sparrow 1
Seaside Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 2
White-throated Sparrow 2 Heard
Dark-eyed Junco 1
Northern Cardinal 3 Entrance ponds
Boat-tailed Grackle 1
American Goldfinch 1 Lily Lake
No comments:
Post a Comment