Jackson 3/2--Horned Lark

Horned Larks, Jackson

Normally, a couple of scruffy old guys with binoculars cruising the grounds of a high school  is not a good idea--someone call the authorities! But on a Saturday afternoon you can get away with it.

After Mike's first Birds of Jackson trip for this year, we were going to head up to Point Pleasant Beach, but first we thought it might be a good idea to check out the lawns of the local high school since, for some reason, they seem to attract Horned Larks and Horned Larks are a very difficult bird to find in Ocean County. Especially now that one of the other reliable sites down in Stafford is undergoing development, making the bird potentially even more scarce.

Horned Larks prefer crappy habitat. The more hardscrabble and uninviting the ground looks the more likely you are to find larks there. So why they like the relatively lush, though brown, grass of the high school is a mystery, but they do. We were hoping to find one or two and almost immediately we did spot a couple. Then a couple more, then more and more until we had an eBird filter-busting count of 23 Horned Larks, all running around in the grass, all camouflaged extremely well, being the same color as the grass, except for their yellow eyebrows, which stood out splendidly.

Other highlights of our wanderings in Jackson Township this morning included 3 Bald Eagles in 3 different locales, a large flock of Common Mergansers on Prospertown Lake, a big flock of Snow Geese in the corn field on Hawkin Road (technically this is New Egypt), 3 Eastern Bluebirds on the wires along Success Road at Colliers Mills and 2 Tundra Swans in Success Lake about two miles up the road. Because of all the wet weather we've been having lately, we didn't attempt to drive all the way through Colliers Mills to Route 571, as we usually do--from the lake on that part of the road is probably more like a river, but instead turned around and drove out as we came in.

Canvasbacks (hens), Little Silver Lake

The noteworthy birds we had up in Point Pleasant Beach included a huge Northern Gannett show, with at least 350 birds flying north in flocks of of 10 & 20 seen from the jetty at Manasquan Inlet, Canvasbacks at both Little Silver Lake and Lake of the Lilies, and Lesser Scaup at both of those locations too.

Our last birds of the day were 3 Killdeer in the field next to the Wawa on Route 70 in Lakewood. Another field that is not long for underdevelopment. Enjoy 'em while you can, I guess.