IBSP | Shelter Cove 4/13--Clapper Rail, Little Blue Heron

Little Blue Herons, Shelter Cove Park

I never thought I'd find Tricolored Herons annoying, but the last few days--twice today--they've been masquerading as another small heron that I didn't have on the year list yet. Today started with intermittent showers and though I knew they would probably last until mid-day, I went to Island Beach SP anyway. Once in a while I like to test out the "bad weather=good birding" theory, if only to prove to myself that it's the bunk. It was again today, as Reed's Road was not interesting except for a couple of towhees singing and calling and refusing to make themselves visible. Spizzle Creek was my real objective today. It can be a great place for herons and if the tide is low, shorebirds too. The tide was high and the only herons I found were a few Great Egrets and a Tricolor Heron that, flying against the gray sky, looked like it could have been something new until it swerved making its landing and revealed a white belly.

However, Spizzle did provide one year bird. I walked out to the blind to get out of the drizzle on Spizzle and didn't at first notice, along with the constant cheeping of the Ospreys, a repetitive "kek-kek-kek-kek..." More intent on scanning the marsh for a heron head sticking up over the reeds, the call of my first Clapper Rail of the year didn't penetrate my thick head for a minute or so. I walked out of the blind and on to the slick muddy peninsula in front of it. The rail, of course, was well-hidden but the persistent "kekking" continued.

I walked the left side of the trail after that and found nothing of interest then came back and walked halfway up the blind trail again to the wooden boards that are a makeshift viewing platform. Only a couple of Greater Yellowlegs in the pools. But, I was rewarded for my second effort when, upon returning to the main trail, I found a flock of about 30 Cedar Waxwings shifting from tree to tree. Not only that, more remarkably, I heard some of them. Their high-pitched calls are usually well out of my range but I guess the atmospheric conditions and their proximity were ideal today.
Spizzle Creek:

21 species

Brant  1

Mallard  3

Bufflehead  41

Red-breasted Merganser  2

Clapper Rail  1    

Greater Yellowlegs  2

Herring Gull  10

Great Black-backed Gull  2

Great Egret  3

Tricolored Heron  1

Osprey  10    

Northern Flicker  1

Peregrine Falcon  1    Eating something on hacking tower on Sedge Island

Fish Crow  2

Tree Swallow  2    

Carolina Chickadee  1

Northern Mockingbird  3

Cedar Waxwing  30

Song Sparrow  2

Red-winged Blackbird  4

Boat-tailed Grackle  5

Shelter Cove is not far away once you get on the mainland and Steve's report from this morning looked promising--waders on the fields--but I also knew that one dogwalker could put the kibosh on that. When I got there, only a few geese were on the fields; a group of young girls practicing soccer probably displaced all the waders. So I took my scope out to the marsh and started to scan. Nothing but a couple of white egrets until I saw what I took for my target bird. Then I looked at it again in the scope and damn if it wasn't yet another Tricolor Heron. Then I saw two more dark heads out toward the bay. There was no way to get the scope on solid ground pointing in that direction, so I walked around the woods, onto the beach, and out to the marsh, where, finally, almost in front of me, were 2 Little Blue Herons. It took long enough to find 'em. 

While I don't have much interest in Ospreys themselves, I do find their nests interesting, especially when they decide to decorate them. The best addition I have ever seen was a huge burlap seed bag that was draped on the side of one nest at Brig. This one with a purple sash, is also a fine example.

Another pair have ensconced themselves atop one of the light towers that illuminate the soccer fields. They seem quite comfortable there and the little girls playing beneath them didn't seem to give them any qualms. Considering the amount of goose logs on the grass, and considering that the grass is about an inch under water, night time soccer there must be a really interesting sport for the birds to watch. 

Shelter Cove Park

20 species

Canada Goose  9

Mute Swan  2

Bufflehead  17

Mourning Dove  1

Laughing Gull  2

Ring-billed Gull  1

Herring Gull  2

Great Egret  1

Snowy Egret  2

Little Blue Heron  2   

Tricolored Heron  1

Glossy Ibis  6

Osprey  4

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Northern Flicker  1

Fish Crow  2

American Robin  2

European Starling  15

Common Grackle  30

Northern Cardinal  1    on ground with grackles