Brigantine Island 2/7--American Oystercatcher

This blog suffers from selection bias, in that I normally only write when I've had a good day, adding a cool bird to the list. Who wants to read about the days I walk 4 miles through fields, woods and around bogs only to list 9 species? Or worse, drive 25 miles to see a bird that isn't around when I get there? Not me. I don't even want to think about it when I get home, much less write about it.

So, not all birding days are equal, obviously. Some, like yesterday, when Mike & I ranged around the county, listed 71 species and added Horned Grebe and Common Merganser to our county lists, I'd describe as great, though we both found it embarrassing to be so deep into the year without a HOGR in Ocean County. With today's birding the term "workmanlike" arises to me as descriptive except it ain't a job, man. With an iffy weather forecast for the morning, we thought a loop around Brig would be a safe bet. Despite seeing 10 Bald Eagles and seeing/hearing 40 other species, there was nothing there today to really get your heart racing, and if the part about the eagles sounds blasé and jaded I'm sorry but I'd exchange 9 of them (actually all 10) for the Barred Owl we hoped to find on the upland section of the drive.

With the impoundments and surrounding bay full to the brim, we figured any raptor food had been drowned or flushed out and of course there was nowhere for any of the wintering sandpipers to feed so after we walked along the Gull Pond road and drove one loop it was on to other spots potentially more interesting.

I hadn't been down to Brigantine Island yet this year, so that was our next stop and I did manage to add American Oystercatcher to my year list but Willets and Marbled Godwits weren't in evidence in the South Cove. Always good to the get the goofy birds on the list though (it was already on Mike's). It was raw and foggy down near Atlantic City, so we headed back north, deciding to get the rest of our steps in at one of the spots we hadn't investigated yesterday, the Manahawkin WMA.

Where we were not very successful except aerobically. While we found Northern Pintails in the back impoundment and a couple of kingfishers, walking the trail through the woods it was as if some had vacuumed up all the birds. Not a peep did we hear until we were 50 yards away from the car on our way back when the trees exploded in bird song with exactly two chickadees and one Downy and Hairy Woodpecker each.

Thus ended a wholly respectable, decent, just fine, pretty good, not gonna win any awards day of birding with 46 species all told.