Assunpink Navigation Beacon field 5/24--Alder Flycatcher

If I'm going to go search for a bird that past experience tells me I have a one in three chance of finding, I may as well look for it in a place I really like. The field with the navigation beacon (on the right in the photo above) at Assunpink, is known to have breeding Yellow-breasted Chats, and I have seen them there in the past, but most of the time it takes me multiple visits of walking through waist high grass to find one. So I started the quest yesterday and, not unexpectedly, came up empty on the chat front.

Grasshopper Sparrow

However, as I say, I really like walking around those fields--empty of people except for the occasional equestrian and very quiet except for bird song. Why, you can even hear the buzzy, insect-like song of the Grasshopper Sparrow without cupping your ears.  And find one too.

The fields are also rife with Indigo Buntings, Common Yellowthroats both orioles, and other fun birds. After looping around the fields below the beacon a couple of times, I usually walk past a grove of Norwegian Spruce then down a hill to the back of Stone Tavern Lake. It was there that I heard my first Hooded Warbler for Monmouth County.

Indigo Bunting

But by far the most interesting bird I was able to turn up there was a supposedly rare Alder Flycatcher. I saw the two-wing barred bird down the hill in first big group of bushes and assumed it was the more common Willow Flycatcher. I lost sight of the bird but then heard it singing what I transliterate as "fee-beer." However you want to spell it, it sounded like the recording I had on my phone. This is not the first time I've gone looking for chats there and come up with an Alder, so I wasn't terribly shocked to find one. Happy though.

Every year I run through the flycatcher "songs" which are easier to remember than the warbler songs:
Phoebe like its name

Eastern Kingbird

Pewee like its name
Willow: fitz-bew!
Alder: fee-beer
Least: ch-bek!
Acadian: Pitza! and the most elusive of all
Olive-sided: Quick three beers!

I don't have mnemonic for Eastern Kingbird. I see so many of them that I've never bothered to even commit the song to memory.

My permethrin infused clothing worked since I came out of the fields unscathed by ticks or chiggers. After walking around there for 3 hours I did the main part of Assunpink for a while but the only bird I found of any interest was a lingering Common Loon on Assunpink Lake, the only bird I saw in the water all day.

My list for the beacon field:
36 species
Turkey Vulture 5
Osprey 1
Red-tailed Hawk 2
Mourning Dove 1 Heard
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2 Heard
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1 Heard
Alder Flycatcher 1
Eastern Kingbird 1 Navigation Beacon
White-eyed Vireo 3 Heard
Warbling Vireo 1 Heard parking lot
Red-eyed Vireo 2
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 1 Heard
Tree Swallow 4 One visiting nest box
Barn Swallow 4
Carolina Chickadee 1 Heard
Eastern Bluebird 1 Navigation Beacon
Wood Thrush 1 Heard
American Robin 2
Gray Catbird 15
Common Yellowthroat 8
Hooded Warbler 1 Heard
Yellow Warbler 3
Grasshopper Sparrow 1
Chipping Sparrow 4
Field Sparrow 15
Eastern Towhee 3
Northern Cardinal 3
Blue Grosbeak 1 Female
Indigo Bunting 8 Probably an undercount
Orchard Oriole 1
Baltimore Oriole 1 First big grove of trees
Red-winged Blackbird 2
Brown-headed Cowbird 5

Baltimore Oriole