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| Cerulean Warbler, Barnegat Light |
It's a good thing Mike isn't as
feckless as I am, otherwise I'd never have added some of the rarities to our lists
this year. The day started off with one of Mike's Birds of Jackson trips, in
which the group visits the same sites in Jackson over the course of the late
winter and early spring to see the change in the bird population as the weather
and habitats change. I was hoping for some new birds, either year or county,
but from FREC, to Butterfly Bogs, to Lake Enno we were finding fine birds but
nothing new, and, having had a heavy week of birding, I was pretty tired and
thinking that after our last stop at Colliers Mills a nap at home
beckoned.
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| Grasshopper Sparrow, Colliers Mills (click any photo to enlarge) |
It wasn't until we were driving up
Success Road in Colliers Mills that we had success when, despite the dogs and
their trainers running around the big field on the north side of the road we
found our first Grasshopper Sparrow of the year,
sitting on a little plant far away from canine activity.
But it was a fine spring day and birds had migrated and the alerts were pinging on our phones. The first rare bird, at Barnegat Light, seemed too far, to me, with a high risk of failure to pay it much mind but when rare birds started getting reported at Cedar Bonnet Island, it was just too tempting. Shari had to go home but after an infusion of Wawa coffee, Mike and I were off the dredge spoils in Manahawkin Bay.
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| Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Scarlet Tanager, Cedar Bonnet Island |
Of the two birds that sent us there--Lincoln's Sparrow and Tennessee Warbler--one, the warbler had been misidentified and had morphed into a even better, rarer species, though it turned out to be a female and thus less colorful. Still, we had to search. As often happens, we had no luck with either of the two birds but instead found others that were almost as interesting. Along the path to the east pavilion we came upon two practically fluorescent Scarlet Tanagers (county birds) and while we were admiring them I noticed that behind one of them was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. You don't often see those two species in the same frame!
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| Eastern Wood-Pewee, Cedar Bonnet Island |
We kept walking back and forth on the entrance path where all the trees are, looking for the sparrow and warbler. We turned up a lot of birds--the place was a Northern Parula hotspot, but nothing rare or new until perhaps the 3rd trip down the path someone (we were with a couple of other birders on a similar mission) pointed out a phoebe high and far way. I looked at it and it didn't seem right so I asked if were certain of the i.d. Wing bars and yellow beak, plus the fact that it was not flicking its tail led me to believe it might be a different flycatcher, which upon closer examination it turned out to be, namely our first Eastern Wood-Pewee of the year.
Well, that was pretty good, putting me at exactly 200 species for the county and as it was just about 4 o'clock, I thought we were done, but after speaking to the one of the birders who'd just come from Barnegat Light we decided to extend the day. He was very persuasive about the ease of finding the rarity there. The Tennessee Warbler that was misidentified on Cedar Bonnet was actually a female Cerulean Warbler which is rare in New Jersey and really rare in Ocean County. But the original report from Barnegat Light was of a male Cerulean Warbler. That's a beautiful bird that we sometimes get high up in the trees in the Delaware Water Gap area. To have one in the county, where for some reason they have been passing through in record numbers (4) would be a real coup. So, even though I thought it was low-percentage play to go, it was no-percentage play not to. After another infusion of Wawa coffee of course.
I don't usually spend much time in the maritime forest at the Light. A quick walk through sometimes having walking the beach or the jetty is all I can muster, but this time we spent quite a while in there. Not much area, but it does act as a migrant trap and though we were coming up empty on the Cerulean, we did have some warbler action in there, along with more Scarlet Tanagers. We also notched our first empid species of the year when we saw a bird with two wing bars, eye ring, plain breast that called "whit." Though rare (for the moment) it turned out be a Willow Flycatcher. In a couple of weeks we'll hear it "singing" "fitz-bew" all over the place, but now we only got the call.
So we figured that for our consolation prize and had made the loop when I saw two photographers I'd met on Cedar Bonnet during the Summer Tanager frenzy. I told them what we were looking for and got those dreaded 5 words, "Oh, you just missed it." They pointed to a bush a few feet away.
I wish I knew what kind of bush this was which was with thick white blossoms, because whatever bugs it was attracting, the birds were loving it. There were two tanagers in there grazing. They reminded me of the parrots we saw in Australia which would feed unconcernedly as you watched from a foot away. Then Mike spotted the Cerulean Warbler in the middle of the bush, living up to it color description. The light was gray by now, so the color of the bird was muted. Still, considering that all the once I have seen have been at least 50 feet up in the canopy, to have one naked eye and eye height was amazing.
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| Scarlet Tanager, Barnegat Light |
A couple of non-birders came by and one was trying to take a photo with his camera of a tanager (which was cooperating) but we told them that they were missing the real attraction and explained how this bird was exceedingly rare in these parts and pretty rare altogether since, due to habitat loss and other factors, its population is down 80% in our lifetimes. They were entranced and then, for good measure, a Cape May Warbler plopped into the bush. The Blue-headed Vireo in there was almost an afterthought.
Still we weren't done. Mike wanted to see if he could find a Piping Plover for the county on the beach. Over the winter the state and a conservation group ploughed down the dunes and beach grass and created a huge flat area for shorebird nesters. A couple of oystercatchers may be taking advantage of the new digs, but so far no pipers. However, near a pond that was created at the same time there was a flock of roosting gulls and I, I myself, with Mike's confirmation, was able to pick out a 3rd year Lesser Black-backed Gull, which I needed for my county list. Our final year bird of the day were Common Terns fishing over the inlet.
When we rolled up to my house it was already dark, which was good because it gave Mike a chance to finally add Eastern Whip-poor-will to his year list. We heard at least 3. A pretty good day considering that I expected to be asleep for half the afternoon.
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| Cerulean Warbler |
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