Great Bay Blvd 8/1-2

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

Looking at the lacunae on my Ocean County list, I thought the only bird I could reasonably expect to find this time of year was Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and the only place I could reasonably expect to find it in the county was Great Bay Blvd. The tides, though, were against me, being low very early in the morning. Still, I thought the laughably named "boulevard" gave me the best chance to see some birds.

Yesterday, at the old boat launch I thought I had my target bird, a juvenile, but when I went home and closely studied the pictures, I could see the tell-tale wash of yellow on the lower mandible and knew that it was, unfortunately, yet another Black-crowned Night-Heron. For two birds that look very dissimilar as adults, the juveniles can be very difficult to pick apart. The mnemonic is that Yellow-crowns have black bills while Black-crowns have yellow on the bill. There's also something about punctuation marks--one bird has periods, the other has exclamation points (or "bangs" as we used to call them in printing) but I can never keep it straight. Yellow-crowns also appear to stand taller and are generally slimmer, but from a distance, this can be very subjective.

So I went back down again today. It was interesting to see the shorebirds switch so quickly. Yesterday I had one Short-billed Dowitcher; today, 63. Yesterday Semipalmated Sandpipers were the predominate peep; today it was Least Sandpipers. I didn't see any Black-bellied Plovers or Spotted Sandpipers yesterday; today I did.

But there were no Yellow-crowns hanging out with the dozens of egrets, both great and snowy. Yesterday a few Black-crowns were stand-offish from the larger flocks of herons and egrets--today I only found one juvenile, roosting int he cedars near the 2nd wooden bridge. I got excited at first, thinking it was the target, but look at the bill: I thought it was a Black-crowned juvie, but Bob Auster informs me that despite the little bit of yellow in the bill, it is, indeed, a Yellow-crowned juvie.

But right after I took this photo I heard a squawking coming from the back of the grove and saw a bird fly out. I rushed around to the old boat launch area and saw, standing on a piling the adult pictured above. Adults are easy. I felt good.

Just to show you how maddening this can be, at the left is a photo of a juvenile Yellow-crown that I found when I walked north up to the first wooden bridge (when it rains...etc). note its slimmer appearance, how it has the same build as the adult, and, of course, its all black bill.

So, despite the greenhead flies (which weren't that bad when there was a breeze), I walked about 10 miles up and down Great Bay during the two days and found it worth my while. The southerly migration is getting good: 7 species of waders, 9 species of shorebirds (but no Willets!), 42 species in all:

Canada Goose

Mallard

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Little Blue Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

Glossy Ibis

Osprey

Bald Eagle

Clapper Rail

Black-bellied Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Ruddy Turnstone

Least Sandpiper

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Short-billed Dowitcher

Spotted Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Laughing Gull

Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Common Tern

Forster's Tern

Black Skimmer

Rock Pigeon

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Tree Swallow

Barn Swallow

Gray Catbird

Northern Mockingbird

European Starling

Common Yellowthroat

Yellow Warbler

Seaside Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Northern Cardinal

Red-winged Blackbird

Boat-tailed Grackle

Great Egrets roosting just north of 2nd wooden bridge