Cloverdale Farm | Great Bay Blvd 5/14--Red Knot, Blackpoll Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler, Cloverdale Farm

The lower the barometric pressure, the lower my spirits, so after 2 days of constant rain I was a dispirited birder this morning. I awoke early and headed down to Barnegat. Everything is flooded. Meadowedge Park had sandpipers, but no ibises other than few flyovers, so I didn't find the White-faced Ibis reported yesterday in the rain. Taylor Lane, a place I used to like for warblers, has a gate across it now toward the back where the Forsythe property begins. It was there last year too; I just forgot about it, so that was pretty much a wasted trip. Collinstown Road was meh. The impoundments on Bayshore were oceanic in appearance. No ibises there either, or shorebirds except Least Sandpipers on the road. Lots of swans.

It wasn't until I made a trip to Cloverdale that my mood began to brighten. Blackpoll Warbler, because I can't hear its very high song, is a difficult bird for me, especially since they prefer the higher elevations of trees. So when I saw not one, but two in the back of the bogs I was delighted. I thought this was a bird I'd be lucky to see if someone else pointed it out to me. Later, at a very busy corner of the trail, I came across another, along with parula, Black-throated Green Warbler, yellow-rumps, a couple of Pine Warblers and Red-eyed Vireo, all in one tree. Must have been a very buggy tree.

By the time I was done at Cloverdale I figured the tide would be going out at Great Bay Blvd, where yesterday I was tempted to go after Mike texted me the birds he was seeing. The radar dissuaded me. I had 3 birds in mind and found 2. I had to wait to get to the end of the road and onto the inlet beach before I found them, but before that I was kept busy by flocks of shorebirds all along the 4 mile stretch, as well as Gull-billed Terns and Black Skimmers at the bulwark at the head of the road. For a while I was stopping whenever I saw a flock of Black-bellied Plovers, hoping to find the American Golden-Plover that Mike had yesterday, but I gave up when the flocks started to swirl and grow. By the time I made it down to the inlet I'd run into Skyler who was also looking for one of my target birds. I didn't think we'd have much trouble finding them--Red Knots--and I was right. There was big flock pretty far away when we first got onto the beach but they conveniently moved toward us and plunked down right in front of our position. Now there's a switch! In among them were some Ruddy Turnstones, a couple of Dunlins and some peeps I didn't bother with. Once a year Red Knots move through the area, not in the numbers that you get on the Delaware Bayshore in Cape May, but enough to be reliable at the inlet. And I only need one.

The other bird I wanted--Saltmarsh Sparrow--didn't take long to find either. We walked on the mud flats to the north toward the Rutgers facility and quickly found a couple scurrying through the beach grass like a couple of mice. One popped out long enough to give us great looks at its orange facial pattern.

Red Knots, Ruddy Turnstones, various peeps. Great Bay Blvd.

Skyler still needed Black-crowned Night-Heron for the year, so we stopped back at the north end of the 2nd wooden bridge, waited a bit, and finally a couple squawked and flew out of the roost there. 

So, two year birds, one county bird. 47 species on the boulevard; they were:

Brant  110

Canada Goose  2

Mallard  2    on side of road before first bridge

Mourning Dove  1

Clapper Rail  5    Heard

American Oystercatcher  3

Black-bellied Plover  250

Semipalmated Plover  20

Whimbrel  7

Ruddy Turnstone  20

Red Knot  75    inlet

Dunlin  6

Least Sandpiper  45

Semipalmated Sandpiper  10

Short-billed Dowitcher  125

Greater Yellowlegs  5

Willet  10

Laughing Gull  20

Herring Gull  50

Great Black-backed Gull  2

Gull-billed Tern  14    Exact count at bulwark

Forster's Tern  25

Black Skimmer  2

Double-crested Cormorant  3

Great Egret  10

Snowy Egret  5

Tricolored Heron  2

Black-crowned Night-Heron  3

Osprey  4

Bald Eagle  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1    Heard

Fish Crow  4

Barn Swallow  8

House Wren  1    Heard

Carolina Wren  1    Heard

American Robin  3

Gray Catbird  1

Chipping Sparrow  1

Seaside Sparrow  10

Saltmarsh Sparrow  2

Song Sparrow  5

Red-winged Blackbird  25

Brown-headed Cowbird  1

Boat-tailed Grackle  30

Common Yellowthroat  4

Yellow Warbler  3

Northern Cardinal  2