Manahawkin WMA 4/1--Least Sandpiper, Townsend's Solitaire

Townsend's Solitaire

I got a late start on the new month because a friend was staying over so I didn't get down to Tuckerton until mid-morning, which had its advantages since the weather had warmed up at least a little bit by then. Still too windy to walk along Great Bay Boulevard and I wasn't finding anything I'd hoped for. With the cold weather the swallows had disappeared from Tip Seaman Park so the Northern Rough-wings that had been there Sunday were somewhere else. No night-herons in the marsh. No interesting shorebirds. So I drove up to Manahawkin, hoping that the impoundments would have some new shorebirds for the year.

Normally, if I was going to check the impoundments, I'd park on Stafford and walk back through there, since it is much closer to the water. But since Stafford looks like the aftermath of a bombing run, I instead parked in the lot off Hilliard, shouldered my scope and took the long walk through the woods of fields.

I wasn't hearing or seeing much passerine action, not surprising with the wind blowing. It wasn't until I was at the end of the "second field" that I heard as much as a chickadee. When I was there on Friday one of the birders looking for the Townsend's Solitaire ducked into a little trail that I'd never noticed before. I put down my scope and took a look in there because I heard something which turned out to be 2 Northern Flickers talking to each other. Then I looked into the crisscrossing branches of a tree right in front of me and saw a bird with a big white eye ring. Holy smokes, there's the bird!

Since the bird was spotted on Thursday, no one else had seen it. A few respectable birders had reported hearing it but I was dubious (especially with all the spring peeper noise around) and besides, with a bird like this, I wanted to see it. And now I was. So I upped the ante. I wanted to photograph it. But all I could see of the bird at any one time was either its eye or its belly and all my camera could focus on was twigs and brown leaves.

I texted Mike that I had the bird in case he was in the vicinity. I kept shifting my angle, very cautiously because I didn't want to scare the bird and then I thought I'd lost it. I played its call on my phone and found, when it flew up onto a branch, that while I was shifting right, it was shifting left and out of my sight line. It stayed on the branch long enough for me to take about 20 photos.

I put out an alert and my phone started to explode. Bob D called me from Brig, unaware of the alert, asking if I still needed Blue-winged Teal for the year. "Bob, I just saw the Townsend's." He was at marker 4. Don't tell anyone, but he backed up from there and somehow hit a gap in the space/time continuum, ending up at the spot well before I thought he'd get there. I'd lost the bird by then and was out by the impoundments, looking through yellowlegs for a lesser. Didn't find one, but I did come across an early Least Sandpiper.

Bob called me and I huffed my way back to where the bird had been. Another bird, Rod, had seen my alert and also had come over from Cloverdale. Soon, Don, one of the original quartet who had reported the bird on Thursday showed up while Rod and I were standing around. Bob had gone to the impoundmennts to look for the Least. While Rod went to look on the little trail, Don put up his binoculars and casually said, "There it is." I texted Bob, called Rod. By then, a lot more birders were showing up and without going into a blow by blow, everyone there, as far as I know, got to see the bird. It was a lifer for a couple of them.

The last couple of solitaires in NJ have been one day wonders, but the couple before them were long-staying birds and it looks like this one is going to hang around for a while too. I put out directions on Jerseybirds on how to find the "second field," since there was constant confusion on the alert app. I didn't realize that Manahawkin, which has the 3rd largest species list in the county, was so unknown to most birders. I think a lot of the listings have come from those driving down Stafford and looking into the marsh. The upland part of it isn't as heavily birded. Until now.