Meadowedge Park 4/18--Cattle Egret

One of my dream birds for Ocean County was Cattle Egret, so imagine my despair this morning when I received a text that one had been found at a little park in Barnegat while I was standing at the Gull Pond at Brig. "Once again," I thought," wherever I am is the wrong place.

Pete thought the bird might hang around, so after the trip was over at Brig, 5 of us drove up to Barnegat (it was on the way home for all us) to this nondescript park on E. Bay Avenue. When we first arrived I saw only geese around the pond (which is more like a puddle) but then I saw a little white bird below the crossbeam of the fence, just as the rest of the group found it. A great bird for the year and one Shari & I haven't seen in a couple of years. Cattle Egrets, after invading North America around 50 or 60 years ago have been on the wane the last few years and no one is sure why. A few are reported every year in New Jersey, usually around Cape May, though we have seen them at Brig, but this is the first one that I know of for Ocean County in quite a long time.