Barnegat Light SP 3/3--A Nemesis No More

Iceland Gull, center

It had become a standing joke among my birding buddies: I didn't have Iceland Gull on my Ocean County list. I've seen Glaucous Gull, which is considered more of a rarity, a number of times in the county--twice this year in fact. I go to Barnegat Light, Manasquan Inlet, and Island Beach a lot. Yet, never did I stumble upon this white-winged gull. Scott, in particular, found it hard to believe since he thinks Glaucous Gull is a much harder bird to find. I've come close: I once saw an Iceland Gull fly over my head on the north side of Manasquan Inlet, which, unfortunately is the southern extreme of Monmouth County.

The last time I saw Scott, I said to him, "Someday, we'll be at Barnegat Light on one of your trips and you'll point one out to me." I said this with confidence, despite having gone on probably 10 trips to the Light with Scott & Linda. Today, Mike and I went over to LBI for the trip. We'd just been there on Wednesday--naturally no Iceland Gull.

Scott and Linda pulled in to the lot and then I saw that Scott had brought a heavy hitter when Jason climbed out of the back seat. I had been on Jason's trip to the Edison Boat Launch and Sayreville Marsh last month and, naturally, got my year Iceland Gull up there--In Middlesex County.

Of course, one of the reasons I've never found an Iceland Gull around here, aside from sheer incompetence, is that I don't particularly find gulls and their permutating molts particularly fun to sort through. Jason does. Jason has spent probably thousands of hours studying gulls. So today, when the group started to scan the bay from the picnic area of the park, it wasn't long before Scott and Jason were conferring and then, with much ceremony, Jason lowered his scope so that I could see, across the way, on a sand bar off Island Beach, my county lifer Iceland Gull.

I reached over my shoulder, grabbed that monkey off my back, and threw it into Barnegat Bay!

But it gets better. After we had walked on concrete covered part of the jetty, the group drove over to 9th St so we could walk the beach to the jetty without actually walking on the jetty and risking cracked skulls and (even more importantly) the estimated $35,000 worth of optics everyone was carrying. There, Jason set up shop again, and while everyone else was looking for Harlequin Ducks, Common Eiders, and Purple Sandpipers (all of which were found), he came up with a second Iceland Gull, this one much closer, on the north side of the jetty, and easier to see since its white body contrasted starkly with the algae-covered rocks of the jetty. Iceland Gull might not be considered rare in the county, but two Iceland Gulls trips the eBird filter. So it isn't like they're everywhere for the asking.

We got a decent number of the expected birds at the Light, though no year birds, but the day, for me was a roaring success. Now, I have to practice looking through gull flocks for the remainder of the year so I can find another one in 2020.

My list for the state park. Mike also had a Cooper's Hawk while my back was turned.

23 species

Brant  50

Greater Scaup  2

Common Eider  200

Harlequin Duck  4

Black Scoter  2

Long-tailed Duck  50

Bufflehead  12

Red-breasted Merganser  3

Ruddy Turnstone  4

Dunlin  100

Purple Sandpiper  5

Herring Gull  200

Iceland Gull  2   

Great Black-backed Gull  3

Red-throated Loon  1

Common Loon  20

Northern Gannet  6

Great Cormorant  5

Double-crested Cormorant  1

American Crow  1

European Starling  10

Northern Cardinal  1

House Sparrow  1