A dreary, rainy morning into which, if we hadn't signed up for Scott & Linda's Island Beach field trip I would not have even gone, turned out to be quite an eventful birding day. The rain tapered off to a drizzle by the time we started the trip and there was no wind to speak of. With the overall gray lighting and a smooth ocean to scan, we spent most of our time on the beach. This is something I don't normally have the patience to do. When I was at Island Beach last week, I walked onto the beach, set up the scope, saw a few gannets, saw a few loons, took note of the gulls and left. Today, we spent, altogether, a couple of hours at least scanning the ocean from various points along the beach. There were good numbers of both loons, in flight and on the water, giving good comparison looks, lots of gannets, and large flights of scoters, some looking like black whips snapping in the sky. All 3 scoter species were represented and I was able to get the scope on one flight to see the white wing patches on the White-winged Scoters. The Black Scoters and Surf Scoters could be told apart by their faces if you had a scope on them. I took Scott's & Linda's words for most of them.
5 species of gulls were present in very large numbers--there were a lot of fishermen both on the beach and in boats (Linda thought it looked like a marine parking lot) so the gulls were very interested in the proceedings. With that many gulls Scott & Linda were certain there were jaegers to be found. Jaegers make their living stealing food from other birds. But the first 3 stops along the beach didn't turn up any of the species.
As I've said in the past, you don't see the bird you're looking for until you truly give up. I told Scott we wouldn't find jaegers because I needed it for my life list and I'd never come close, to my knowledge, of finding one. (Shari has seen them on pelagic trips; I'm a land-based birder.) So naturally, 5 minutes after I had confessed as a jaeger jinx, Scott spotted a PARASITIC JAEGER harassing a Laughing Gull. (Guess why they're called "parasitic.") This was a bird that looked pretty much like all the other juvenile gulls on the water except those brownish gulls are not nearly as aggressive and don't fly like falcons. I was okay with the view I got of the jaeger in flight as it headed north, but I'd have like to have seen it better. A few minutes later 2 more appeared as settled down on the water. They looked like two brown birds bobbing in the ocean; even with the scope at 60X power I couldn't see anything to distinguish them from other birds. But eventually they took flight and I was able to see some field marks (brown wings with white highlights, a white collar). Still, it was mostly in how they flew that made the biggest impression on me--they are more like raptors with strong wing-beats then gull that seem to fly effortlessly.
While we were scoping the water looking at the 2 jaegers, Linda called out to look on the beach--a small flock of Snow Buntings were bouncing along in flight at the water's edge. Those were our first buntings of the year and probably the first ones in a couple of years.
Scott and I have a running joke about our eBird county lists--Scott holds the lifetime records for a few counties in NJ including Ocean. Last year, when I accumulated the most species in Ocean County for 2012, it was only because Scott didn't get down here much toward the end of the year. Sometimes I feel like all Scott has to do is step into Ocean County, look around for a few minutes and he'll be way ahead of my numbers. However, this year I'm doing really well--ironically because I've gone on a few outings with Scott. For instance--I'd never have gotten the jaeger without him, nor would I have added the American Pipit that flew over our heads without him pointing it out. And of course, if he hadn't suggested I check out the cattle farm in New Egypt back in January, we'd never have gotten the Northern Lapwings either. Today I added 5 more species for the year to bring me up 212; two of them, the pipit and the jaeger, are county life birds, putting me at #3. However, since I am a land-based birder, I know I'm never going to catch Scott for the top spot. And that's all right because he's 10 times the birder I am. Let's face it: I lead in Ocean County this year primarily because I'm always here.
My list for the day:
39 Species
American Black Duck 100
Surf Scoter X
White-winged Scoter 25
Black Scoter X
Surf/Black Scoter X
Long-tailed Duck 3 Two flying, one in water
Bufflehead 100
Red-breasted Merganser 6
Red-throated Loon 50
Common Loon 30
Horned Grebe 1
Northern Gannet 50
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 7
Northern Harrier 1
Black-bellied Plover 2
Sanderling 25
Dunlin 10
PARASITIC JAEGER 3
Bonaparte's Gull 10
Laughing Gull X
Ring-billed Gull X
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 10
Forster's Tern 2
Northern Flicker 1
Peregrine Falcon 1
Carolina Wren 1 Heard Winter Anchorage
Golden-crowned Kinglet 2 Heard Maintenance yard
Hermit Thrush 1 Heard, Interpretative Ctr
Gray Catbird 3
American Pipit 1 f/o
Snow Bunting 15
Yellow-rumped Warbler 10
Song Sparrow 1
Swamp Sparrow 1 Heard, Winter Anchorage
White-throated Sparrow 20
Dark-eyed Junco 1
Northern Cardinal 1 Interpretative Ctr
House Finch 1 Heard, Interpretative Ctr
No comments:
Post a Comment