Great Bay Blvd 4/26--Seaside Sparrow

Late start this morning, due to errands, so there was little point in walking in the woods because all the activity would have been over, so I drove the boring 30 miles down to Great Bay Blvd to get my walk in and, I hoped, see some interesting birds. But I only heard a new bird for the year; Seaside Sparrows were singing at my first stop and despite diligently scoping the tall reeds and the low bushes there and later at the inlet, I wasn't able to actually see one, though a bird skulking on the ground and couple of dark fly-bys might have been the sparrows.

I took my usual long walk from the beach up to the first wooden beach, a round trip of about 3 1/2 miles, finding 6 species of shorebirds, one of which, Short-billed Dowitcher, was new for the county. I'm stupefied at this point that I have not come across any Night-Herons yet and I regret, now, my chance to look for the Black-crowned Night-Heron at a known roosting spot on LBI in January because, I said, "I'll get them easily enough, later." Words to rue. There are two spots, one by each wooden bridge, where I've seen both herons roosting in small stands of pine trees, but so far not this year.  Whimbrel has been reported there too and every far off candidate turned out to be yet another Willet. 

For my 3 hours of pounding the Boulevard of Broken Asphalt I tallied 30 species. They were:

Brant  80
Canada Goose  1
Mallard  2     Marsh before first wooden bridge
Double-crested Cormorant  115
Great Blue Heron  1
Great Egret  25
Snowy Egret  10
Glossy Ibis  4
Osprey  15
American Oystercatcher  2
Black-bellied Plover  9
Greater Yellowlegs  10
Willet  20
Dunlin  9
Short-billed Dowitcher  1
Laughing Gull  20
Ring-billed Gull  2
Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  2
Forster's Tern  15
Northern Flicker  1
Tree Swallow  5
Barn Swallow  10
Common Yellowthroat  5     Heard
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Seaside Sparrow  5     Heard
Chipping Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  2
Red-winged Blackbird  75
Boat-tailed Grackle  50

Greater Yellowlegs were easy to find