Barnegat Light SP 12/22

Purple Sandpipers, Barnegat Light SP jetty

After a two and half week layoff, I was anxious to get back to my routine of a long walk looking for birds and decided Barnegat Light SP would be a good place on this windless but very cloudy morning. As I was scanning the back end of the inlet from the western edge of the park, I heard the sounds of machinery off to the east--grumbling engines and back-up beeping--and found, when I got on the concrete walkway that some sort of dredging operation was getting underway and that the beach was closed off as earth moving equipment was digging a big pit, presumably for the dredge spoil. What a mess that's going to be.

Dredging operation preparation

This left me with two choices if I wanted to get to the end of the jetty: Risk life, limb, and optics (in ascending order of importance) by rock hopping a mile, or, go back to the parking lot and drive over to 8th street where I could access the beach and walk a half mile north. I chose the latter. 

Ruddy Turnstones with Purple Sandpiper

It was the worth walk. In the winter, I go to Barnegat Light to find Harlequin Ducks (the best place on the east coast to find them) and Purple Sandpipers. There was a nice flock of Harlequins, mostly drakes, sitting on the south side of the jetty and on the jetty, once I clambered up it, I found a couple of Purple Sandpipers mixed in with the much more numerous Ruddy Turnstones. 

A King Eider has been reported, off and on, for the last couple of days, but I couldn't find it (nor could a couple of other guys there). There were plenty of Common Eiders to look through, drakes and hens, adults and juveniles, and a few other duck species, so it wasn't like waiting for a rare bird to show up (which I hate). After I got down off the jetty in one piece I took a walk up to the dunes to see if there were any sparrows or Snow Buntings to be found (there weren't, though there were two Ipswich Savannah Sparrows near the rocks) and then made my way back to 8th Street.

I had 27 species for my 3 miles of walking, which isn't bad for a beach in winter. 

Brant 110
Canada Goose 25
Common Eider 65
Harlequin Duck 9
Surf Scoter 1
Black Scoter 100
Long-tailed Duck 10
Red-breasted Merganser 2
Red-throated Loon 2
Common Loon 6
Northern Gannet 1
Great Cormorant 6
Ruddy Turnstone 15
Sanderling 30
Purple Sandpiper 2
Bonaparte's Gull 1
Herring Gull 200
Great Black-backed Gull 15
Peregrine Falcon 1
American Crow 3
American Robin 1
European Starling 75
Yellow-rumped Warbler 10
Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich) 2
Northern Cardinal 3
Boat-tailed Grackle 50
House Sparrow 20

Common Goldeneye hen

Horned Grebe

Another bird I like to look for on LBI is Common Goldeneye, which can very often be found bayside off Sunset Park in Harvey Cedars. I made a stop there but found mostly Buffleheads and few other duck species. When I can't find the goldeneyes there I have a fall back location, which, for some reason, almost always produces goldeneyes. On the way back to the bridge you make a turn on 24th street and, if instead of making the quick left that will take you south, you instead drive one more block to the bay, you will probably find some goldeneyes. Which I did, along with a few Horned Grebes, more Buffleheads, a couple of Greater Scaup hens, and a couple of Red-breasted Mergansers. A couple very bad pictures of the a hen goldeneye (the two drakes I found were way too far and diving way too much to photograph) and a Horned Grebe flank this paragraph. You can click on them to make them bigger (and worse).

A very decent day for my first foray with my "new" eyes.