Island Beach SP | Toms River HS East 6/17--Brown Pelican, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

I was eating lunch at home when the first somewhat vague report came in of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher at a high school in Toms River. I slapped the table in frustration--45 minutes previous I was in Toms River, on my way back from Island Beach SP where I finally was able to see a dozen Brown Pelicans, one flock of seven looking like, to jam a couple of similes together, a squadron of prehistoric flying boats.

Brown Pelicans

I was hesitant to just burst out the door for a couple of reasons--first of all the report was second-hand from a Facebook group (I don't have a Facebook account) and secondly because schools and binoculars don't mix. I had to run an errand anyway and figured that in the time the errand took, more information would come through. After some back and forth in the group it was determined that school was out, so it was safe to go even if the location was still in doubt as to which high school in Toms River it was. As I was pulling out of the parking lot of CVS, left would take me to Toms River, right would take me home. I made a left, what the heck, and just as I did, my phone pinged again--bird was there.

It took me about a half hour to get there and by the time I did more messages had come in that gave more precise location directions--from the Google map the high school looked like it was on a big campus. I parked in the first lot and hoped for the best, walking toward the athletic fields, since I knew that would be a likely area for the flycatcher. As soon as I turned the corner to get to the back of the school I saw the cream of Ocean County birders standing at the fence line and rushed to join them. There was no need for me to run. The bird was in plain sight, sitting on a fence, occasionally making sorties to hawk a bug. And it was spectacular. It would almost be worth living in Oklahoma, just to have this be a common bird. Maybe not. But the bird, aside from its incredible form, is beautifully and subtly colored in shades of gray and salmon.

More birders kept showing up--the power of social media. I took a few photos (like 50) and was going to leave but before I did, I texted Mike to see if he was available. The bird was putting on quite a show, I told him. He was able to get away, so I hung out until he got there--there's this bizarre concept of handing off a rarity--and it took him around a half hour to get there. Still more birders arrived; I count right now 26 reports on eBird and not everyone uses eBird and not everyone gets their reports in immediately.

This flycatcher was found by a teacher at the school who is not a birder but just happened to notice the strange bird on the fence and posted it to Facebook. I was talking to another birder about how randomly some rarities are reported--the Mississippi Kite in Waretown is a perfect example of a bird that would have gone overlooked if a birder didn't happen to live across the street from where it roosted. Birders go to the "hot" spots, but who knows what rarities are in the marshes on the Parkway that we can't access, or the playing fields of schools where we'd be considered creeps, or the waste treatment plants that are off limits due to "security" (and, well, the smell)? I remember there was a Prothonotary Warbler at the NY Public Library for a week before a birder noticed it--the guards thought it was canary and were feeding it corn chips!

And yet, 99% of the time, stopping at random field will yield you exactly nothing, never mind something rare. Sometimes you can look at acres and acres of open land and not see even a starling. You'll look at a lake and say, "How can there not be one duck on this water?" But 1% of the time, someone (a few times that someone has been me) will see something and say "What the hell is that?" and we all come running.

The last report, at 8:25 tonight, was that the bird had flown off, whether to find a place to sleep for the night or to continue its out of range wanderings we'll only know tomorrow.