Barnegat Light SP 12/9--King Eider

Today I was planning on looking for birds I like--specifically Common Goldeneye on LBI--instead of birds I "need" for the year. Then last night my buddy Bob Auster called and suggested a birding outing, so we settled on Barnegat Light SP because we both "needed" a duck that had been reported there for the last few days. I figured Bob who probably has sharper eyes than me and definitely more patience would be able to pick out the oxymoronic hen King Eider that was supposedly in with a raft of Common Eiders at the end of the jetty.

Long-tailed Duck, Barnegat Light.

The language-loving Larry cringes every time the birding Larry has to say something like "hen King Eider" or "male swamphen," or (and this would be extremely hypothetical) "female Emperor Penguin." No one was happier when Common Moorhen got changed back to Common Gallinule, because, as I used to tediously point out, there are no moors in North America and half the birds aren't hens. And when an old birder tells me that he prefers "Oldsquaw" to Long-tailed Duck I begin to mutter very unpleasantly about casual racism and again about how half of them aren't squaws anyway.

So, with all that said and the fact that a hen Somateria spectabilis is not a particularly interesting bird to look at, being a medium-sized brown duck, I wasn't inclined to freeze my butt off looking for one by myself, but two of us looking might be fun. It was, kind of, and, ironically, I found the bird first, bobbing on the north end of the jetty, as advertised with a huge flock of eiders that also had mixture of both Black and Surf Scoters. Neither Bob or I was inclined to risk life, limb, and optics by walking out on the jetty out to the where the flock was--that's what scopes are for. We climbed up on the jetty at a spot where the sand had built up enough to make getting up there seem not too dangerous, but no way were we going rock-hopping. Of course, this means no photographs of the birds but the way it was bobbing in the waves and slipping out of sight, I don't know if even getting a 1000 feet closer would have helped.

Harlequin Ducks, Bayview Marina

Having got my "tick" plus all the usual birds you'd expect to see at and around the jetty except for Purple Sandpiper, making it two times this month I've missed it, we left the park and hit the usual spots along the bay. Our first stop, the Bayview Marina had a surprise. Bob pointed out two drake Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) floating along between the piers. I can't think of a time that I've seen Harlequins in calm water--they're always diving very close to rocks or jetties somewhere.

We worked our way down to Sunset Park in Harvey Cedars and brought out the scopes to scan the big flocks of Buffleheads in the bay. And, as they reliably but mysteriously almost always are, there were Common Goldeneyes to be found. Why this little section of the bay gets goldeneyes while if you scan a mile north or south, you won't find them, is what makes birding so "interesting."

We built up a decent little winter list with some "quality" sightings. Our list for Barnegat Light SP will suffice:
26 species
Brant 25
King Eider 1 Continuing hen
Common Eider 200
Harlequin Duck 10
Surf Scoter 5
White-winged Scoter 1 Close in to shore
Black Scoter 20
Long-tailed Duck 75 A number of flocks and some very close in.
Bufflehead 10
Red-breasted Merganser 1
Rock Pigeon 9
Ruddy Turnstone 15
Sanderling 20
Dunlin 5
Ring-billed Gull 1
Herring Gull 200
Great Black-backed Gull 25
Red-throated Loon 2 One very close to shore
Common Loon 3
Great Cormorant 1
American Crow 6
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 100
Dark-eyed Junco 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
House Sparrow 10

Red-throated Loon, Barnegat Light SP