Mercer Sod Farm IBA 3/2--ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK

It has been a continual source of irritation to me that 25 miles northwest of our house, a life bird has been reported almost daily, the irritation made worse when I consider the number of loops we have made, unsuccessfully, around the Mercer Sod Farm IBA, looking for it. Restless days, sleepless nights.

Bounded on the east by busy Route 206 and on the other sides by roads with very few places to pull over, it is not an easy place to bird, since you're not allowed to actually walk on the property. An ominous sign on a chain across a mowed path says that the area is closed, (despite it belongng to the Burlington County Parks Dept) awaiting "development." When it comes to open areas, development is never a good word, so I'll take the trade off of having to find the few spots where you can scan the fields.

Yesterday we made a trip around the fields (Monmouth Road to Warner Road to Jacksonville-Jobstown Road to Route 206) and while we found many raptors, including one we dearly tried to turn into our target bird we had no luck, only to come home and find three reports of the bird on eBird more or less bracketing the time we were there. More frustration. Today we tried again.

It is a law I've expounded before--you will not find the bird until you have truly given up on seeing it. After our 2nd loop around the fields, having found many Red-tailed Hawks and seen thousands of geese, both Canada and Snow, I said to Shari that I had officially given up. Before making the 2nd trip we were looking for a pullout on Route 206 that someone had mentioned on an eBird report. We saw a car pulled over. Shari thought he had car trouble. I thought I saw him pulling out a tripod. After we had given up, we drove down 206; the car was still there and the driver was another couple of hundred feet down the road with a camera equipped with a high-powered lens. We pulled over to the shoulder and I asked him if he'd seen the hawk. We received the "oh, you just missed it" response.

"But the bird is here," Shari muttered as she pulled back onto the highway. We made a 3rd fruitless circuit, our aggravation compounded by a stop at a Wawa that had no restrooms. (The bright side--we saw 2 Eastern Bluebirds from the parking lot.) We continued south on 206 and pulled in next to John's car. It turned out that we knew of each other through posts on Jerseybirds. He was drinking coffee, hoping for the bird to reappear. We pulled out the scope and Shari started scanning. I think she came up with another couple of Red-tails and in the meantime we saw a couple of Northern Harriers gliding low along the grasslands. Then Shari found a bird perched in a bare tree that decidedly did not look like a Red-tail. Nor did it look like an eagle, or a Cooper's Hawk, or any other kind of hawk we could think of. It had a light-colored head and a very dark belly and was mottled a bit on the wings. It was about 1/4 mile north of where we stood. I shouldered the scope and off we trod through the muddy grass. About 1/2 way to the tree I stopped and scoped again. I was almost positive this was the bird. We continued, joined by another birder named Roy. It would be a lifer for him too. We got parallel with the tree and as I was setting up to scope for it John said, "It just flew!"

After a few moments, Roy spotted the bird in a nearby tree and I got on it. By now we were all pretty much convinced we had our bird. It flew again, and when it hovered over a bare bush, before landing atop it, I knew we had it: ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, an arctic breeder and fairly rare in NJ and particularly rare in southern NJ away from the shore. I had watched videos of the hawk and seen how it hover hunts, so when it hung in the air above that bush I had no doubt. Once it landed it gave us great "field guide" looks in the scope.

Unfortunately, in the all the excitement, I had left my camera in the car so I started back for it, hoping the bird would stay put but realizing that it probably wouldn't. The picture above was taken on my way back as Shari, Roy, and John were heading toward me. The bird had flown back toward our cars. I wasn't going to get a picture.

Still, it was a great feeling to finally get the bird and to see it so well. Our first lifer of the year, my 500th bird in the United States and the 612th bird on my life list.

Our complete list for the day:
21 species
Snow Goose  5000    Huge flyover flocks
Canada Goose  1500    Large flocks on Warner Road and in fields on Rt 206
Black Vulture  2    Sitting on roof of house on Warner Road
Turkey Vulture  1
Northern Harrier  2    Route 206 side of fields.
Red-tailed Hawk  6
ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK  1    
Killdeer  2
Ring-billed Gull  5
Mourning Dove  3
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Downy Woodpecker  1    Heard
Blue Jay  10
Fish Crow  1    Heard
Carolina Wren  1    Heard
Eastern Bluebird  2    
American Robin  10
Northern Mockingbird  1
European Starling  25
Northern Cardinal  2    Warner Road
Red-winged Blackbird  5