Great Bay Blvd 1/10

Boat-tailed Grackle, female

The inlet at Great Bay this morning looked more like Alaska than New Jersey, with big ice floes scattered throughout the water, some looking like min-icebergs, with shards from the wave action sticking up into the air. This made for great scenery, but with almost all the water frozen in the bay, the creeks, and the marshes, it also made for a dearth of birds.

Sometimes birding around here reminds me of food shopping in Brooklyn. On Saturday, you'd walk up and down Court Street, go to Esposito's for sausage, Pastosa's for pasta, this bakery for bread, that store for bagels, the farmers' market  downtown for vegetables, make a detour on Atlantic Ave and go to Sahadi's for Middle Eastern food... Here, birding, you go to Island Beach for the Snowy Owl, go to Barnegat Light to get the Harlequin Ducks and Purple Sandpiper, today, go to Great Bay Blvd to get Boat-tailed Grackle on the year list. To extend the analogy, Brig would be like going to Shop-Rite.

That species, plus a very close look at a Northern Harrier flying right over my head, were the two birds I added today. Not much else to see--in the creek below the 2nd wooden bridge there was a small draw of open water with mostly Buffleheads. A scope look revealed a couple of hen Common Goldeneyes and a few Hooded Mergansers. The bay itself had more Buffleheads, as well as the seemingly ubiquitous Red-breasted Mergansers, plus the unsurprising Brants.

As to land birds...robins, yellow-rumps, and the aforementioned grackles were all in good numbers. Not the biggest list, but, for the first time in a while, I accomplished my four miles of walking between, covering the beach and the road up to the first wooden bridge and back.

16 species
Brant 100
American Black Duck 3
Bufflehead 50 24 near second wooden bridge, balance in inlet
Common Goldeneye 2
Hooded Merganser 3
Red-breasted Merganser 15
Northern Harrier 1
Dunlin 50
Herring Gull 5
Great Black-backed Gull 1
American Crow 1 Heard
American Robin 50
European Starling 10
Yellow-rumped Warbler 50
Song Sparrow 1
Boat-tailed Grackle 45 Probably an undercount