Cedar Run Dock Road 6/28--Black-bellied Whistling Duck

High on my wish list for both year and county bird is Black-bellied Whistling Duck. Just look at them! And the name alone makes them worth chasing. Today, (actually yesterday, but the report didn't show up on eBird until the wee hours) a pair showed up on Cedar Run Dock Road, more known as a winter birding spot than a summer one. These are the first birds recorded in Ocean County. BBWD is a regular visitor to NJ, sometimes at Brig, but more recently in Cape May, where there have been a number reported in a couple of spots this last month or so. Whether these are a couple of wanderers wandering away from those wanderers is impossible to know.


When I saw the report very early this morning I was tempted to run down there, but as Cedar Run Dock Road is long and there was no specific site cited, I instead kept to my original plan of running down to Brig to search for the Black-necked Stilt (another favorite) that has been seen at the dogleg for the last couple of days. Then I planned to drive down CRDR, searching for the ducks.

I should have gone to Brig yesterday, but I wasn't in the mood to deal with the greenhead flies. Instead, I was content to explore one of the more obscure corner of Burlington County for the 2nd time this week. But I thought, last night, that if I got to Brig early enough, before the heat set in, the greenies wouldn't be too bad. A good thought, but there were just enough of them at 7 AM to still be damn annoying. More annoying was the half hour spent looking for and not find the stilt.

Then the alert came in that the BBWD were still there--with an address. Abandoning the idea of the stilt I drove the half of the wildlife drive before me without looking at anymore birds, scooted up the Parkway, miraculously avoided the LBI traffic on 72, and was on Cedar Run Dock Road before you could say "Black-bellied Whistling Duck." I got the address and didn't see any ducks, but looking behind me, to a house up on pilings, I immediately saw the pair mixed in with a few molting Mallards.

I admired them for a few minutes, took a lot of photos, and just as I was about to leave, another birder I know pulled up. They were lifers for her and we spent more time looking at the goofy birds as they rested and preened.

Mike texted me and said he was on the way. By then I was pretty much satiated with BBWD, but again, just as I was about to take off, I saw his car coming down the road, so I hung around for a few minutes. Finally, after almost an hour there, I left, handing the bird off to yet another Ocean County birder--again, a lifer listing for him too.

June has been an outstanding month in Ocean County. Two great rarities (the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher was the first) and two county lifers for me. Very hard for me to get county lifers now, since I don't do pelagics, so, after a long walk up and down Stafford Avenue (the Bridge to Nowhere at its terminus), it was happy drive home.