Manahawkin WMA 4/7--Little Blue Heron, White Ibis, Glossy Ibis

White Ibis

I birded the Manahawkin WMA today, because the back impoundment often has Blue-Winged Teal (a tough duck to find reliably in Ocean County) and I also figured the marshes might, by now, have some interesting waders. I figured correctly!

I walked the trail the starts on Stafford Avenue to the back impoundment and immediately found a large flock of Green-winged Teal and, as I had hoped, a drake Blue-winged Teal mixed in with them.  In the trees that border the far shore of that impoundment there was a lot of white egrets coming and going and above them a darker flock of birds which I at first took for cormorants until I put my binoculars on them and saw that they were my FOY Glossy Ibis.

Glossy Ibis

They eventually settled down and fed on a mud flat at the far end of the impoundment. I walked down there, hoping to get a better look. When I got to the "T" where the trail goes either into the marsh or eventually to the parking lot on Hilliard Avenue, another large flock of white egrets flushed from a ditch. I saw a couple of Snowy Egrets in with them, which I still needed for the county, and then I gasped as I saw a White Ibis rise up with them, pink, decurved bill, black wing-tips and all. Before I could take a photo it was gone, but there was no mistaking that bird. I quickly put out an alert, but I didn't feel good about it since there is an awful lot of marsh to look through, much of it hard to see. Then the bird popped up again, perched in a tree. I took 2 photos (one of them above) and my then my camera *#@&* froze! The bird flew off again. But at least I had doc shots. My phone rang and before I even pulled it out of my pocket I knew who it would be, one of my friends who is indefatigable when it comes to finding birds. He wasn't sure of the location, so I told him to park where my car was and I'd go meet him. I wasn't optimistic about his chances.

4th sighting of White Ibis

As I started back I saw the bird yet again, this time flying back toward the middle of the big marsh that you can see from the trail off Stafford. I ran after it but lost it as it descended. On the trail back to Stafford Ave I ran into another birder I know who was responding to my alert, then my friend came along and we three started back in the direction where I thought the bird had landed. While the first guy, wearing high, rubber boots, took a precarious route into the marsh, my friend and I walked back to the "T." Before I could even say "It was right about here," the bird jumped up into a little leafless tree and we both had great, naked eye looks before it again flew off. We ran back to get birder #3 and we went left this time into the marsh. There, on the end of a conga line of Great & Snowy Egrets was the White Ibis, finally sitting still long enough for us to get good scope looks and take pictures (though mine, at a distance are not great.

Everybody was happy. The problem with Manahawkin WMA is that its location is not really clear to a lot of people, since on one side of Stafford Avenue is the Bridge to Nowhere section of Forsythe, while the other side of the road is Manahawkin, with the "official" entrance being a parking lot on Hilliard about a mile and half away. All this is preamble to why I got a text asking for better directions since the birders were in the parking lot. Actually, they were closer there than from Stafford Avenue, but since I was at Stafford Avenue, I waited for them to end up there, intending to walk them back to the location. I didn't have to. I stood on a little pile of dirt and from there I could see the bird and got them on it 1,2,3. Practically a walk-up bird for them.

One of them spotted a big wader in his scope and we determined that it was a Willet, supposedly rare for this time of year, though the Western Willets are common all through the winter a little farther south on Brigantine Island. We didn't notice that the ibis had flown again (I have never seen such an active ibis), which was unfortunate as yet another birder pulled up. We told him where he might look and started back to my original location. We three eventually made it back there, running into two more friends also searching for the bird. They went one way, we went another and about halfway to the "T" we spotted the ibis flying overhead. We got birder #6 on it, but birders 7 & 8 were never able to see the bird despite frantic texting. (Sidenote: It is awkward to write entries sans names, but I don't feel comfortable naming other birders w/o their permission.)

We walked down Stafford, hoping for a better look at the Willet, which, of course we couldn't find, Instead, we came up with my third year bird of the day, an adult Little Blue Heron, feeding in one of the pools. Always good to get an adult one as your first bird of the year instead of having to dither about whether a white juvenile is actually what you want it to be.

Little Blue Heron

I hadn't intended to spend almost 6 hours at Manahawkin. I didn't even do my usual route which is to bring the scope back to the car after looking at the impoundments and then make a round trip to Hilliard Avenue and back. On the other hand, I don't think I've had 40 species in one day there either.

So, it was a satisfying day as finding a rarity always is, even if, as usual, the rarity I find is a big, obvious, no-brainer. There's no real identification skill involved, just the dumb luck of walking an out of the way trail.

My list for Manahawkin. Other stops for the day yielded fine birds like Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, but nothing else was new for the year.
40 species
Canada Goose 4
Mute Swan 5
Blue-winged Teal 4
Mallard 6
American Black Duck 10
Northern Pintail 2 Back impoundment
Green-winged Teal 35
Hooded Merganser 1 Back Impoundment
Red-breasted Merganser 10
Horned Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 4
Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 25
Snowy Egret 15
Little Blue Heron 1
Tricolored Heron 3
White Ibis 1
Glossy Ibis 50
Turkey Vulture 2
Osprey 1
Northern Harrier 1
Bald Eagle 1 f/o
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Greater Yellowlegs 30 Many small groups of 5 or 6
Willet 1 Large gray shorebird with long bill thicker than Yellowlegs
Herring Gull 4
Belted Kingfisher 2
Downy Woodpecker 3
Northern Flicker 1
Fish Crow 5
Carolina Chickadee 1 Heard
Tufted Titmouse 1
American Robin 6
Yellow-rumped Warbler 10
Dark-eyed Junco 12
Song Sparrow 35 Undercount
Swamp Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 1 Heard
Red-winged Blackbird 25
Boat-tailed Grackle 2