September Wrap-up--6 Year Birds

Marbled Godwits, Island Beach SP

It was a good month, at least in birding terms, with 160 species recorded, 6 year birds and many rarities that were already on the list but are nonetheless always happy sightings. We subtly made the transition from shorebird migration to warbler migration and now it seems that warbler migration is already slowing down. I added a couple of warblers this month (Bay-breasted and Nashville). You get a second chance with the warblers. The shorebirds, like Baird's Sandpiper and Buff-breasted Sandpiper, tend to use a different migration route on their northerly journey, so late summer is usually your only chance to get them.

The two birds I was happiest to get were the Lark Sparrow and Philadelphia Vireo at Island Beach SP last week, both county lifers. The other year bird of the month was actually the first one found, by my sharp-eyed wife--the Common Gallinule at Brig.

As you can see from the list below, I spent most of the month at the big hot spots like Brig, Island Beach and Sandy Hook, birding with friends; however, once in a while I just took off by myself to walk where I like to be, like Whitesbog or South Park Road in Tabernacle, and didn't worry too much about the list, but just enjoyed where I was for what it was. A lot of times I didn't see a lot of birds. With 3 billion fewer in North America than 50 years ago, we better get used to that. I don't have many regrets, but I do wish I was paying more attention to birds in my teens and twenties. That's when there were birds.

The month list:
Counties birded: 
New Jersey: Atlantic, Burlington, Monmouth, Ocean
New York: New York

Species            First Sighting

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck   Brig

Brant   Holgate

Canada Goose   Brig

Mute Swan   Brig

Wood Duck   Reeves Bogs

Blue-winged Teal   Brig

Northern Shoveler   Brig

Gadwall   Brig

American Wigeon   Brig

Mallard   BC Fairgrounds

American Black Duck   Whitesbog

Northern Pintail   Brig

Green-winged Teal   Brig

Surf Scoter   Island Beach SP

Ruddy Duck   Brig

Wild Turkey   35 Sunset Rd

Rock Pigeon   Toms River

Mourning Dove   Reeves Bogs

Yellow-billed Cuckoo   Island Beach SP

Chimney Swift   Brig

Ruby-throated Hummingbird   35 Sunset Rd

Clapper Rail   Brig

Sora   Brig

Common Gallinule   Brig

American Avocet   Brig

American Oystercatcher   Island Beach SP

Black-bellied Plover   Brig

American Golden-Plover   BC Fairgrounds

Semipalmated Plover   Brig

Piping Plover   Sandy Hook

Killdeer   BC Fairgrounds

Whimbrel   Brig

Marbled Godwit   Island Beach SP

Ruddy Turnstone   Holgate

Red Knot   Island Beach SP

Stilt Sandpiper   Brig

Sanderling   Island Beach SP

Dunlin   Island Beach SP

Baird's Sandpiper   Sandy Hook

Least Sandpiper   Whitesbog

White-rumped Sandpiper   Brig

Buff-breasted Sandpiper   Whitesbog

Pectoral Sandpiper   Whitesbog

Semipalmated Sandpiper   Brig

Western Sandpiper   Brig

Short-billed Dowitcher   Brig

Long-billed Dowitcher   Brig

Red-necked Phalarope   Brig

Spotted Sandpiper   Island Beach SP

Greater Yellowlegs   Reeves Bogs

Willet   Holgate

Lesser Yellowlegs   Brig

Laughing Gull   BC Fairgrounds

Ring-billed Gull   Brig

Herring Gull   Brig

Great Black-backed Gull   Brig

Least Tern   Brig

Caspian Tern   Brig

Black Tern   Sandy Hook

Common Tern   Island Beach SP

Forster's Tern   Brig

Royal Tern   Brig

Black Skimmer   Brig

Common Loon   Island Beach SP

Double-crested Cormorant   Brig

Brown Pelican   Island Beach SP

Great Blue Heron   Reeves Bogs

Great Egret   Reeves Bogs

Snowy Egret   Brig

Little Blue Heron   Island Beach SP

Tricolored Heron   Island Beach SP

Green Heron   Reeves Bogs

Black-crowned Night-Heron   Brig

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron   Great Bay Blvd WMA

Glossy Ibis   Brig

White-faced Ibis   Brig

Black Vulture   BC Fairgrounds

Turkey Vulture   S. Park Rd, Tabernacle

Osprey   Brig

Northern Harrier   Brig

Sharp-shinned Hawk   Cedar Bonnet Island

Cooper's Hawk   Reeves Bogs

Bald Eagle   GSP MM 48

Red-tailed Hawk   Amasa Landing Rd.

Belted Kingfisher   Island Beach SP

Red-headed Woodpecker   S. Park Rd, Tabernacle

Red-bellied Woodpecker   S. Park Rd, Tabernacle

Downy Woodpecker   Reeves Bogs

Hairy Woodpecker   S. Park Rd, Tabernacle

Northern Flicker   Island Beach SP

American Kestrel   Great Bay Blvd WMA

Merlin   Island Beach SP

Peregrine Falcon   Reeves Bogs

Eastern Wood-Pewee   Reeves Bogs

Eastern Phoebe   Island Beach SP

Great Crested Flycatcher   Manasquan River WMA

Eastern Kingbird   Brig

White-eyed Vireo   Whitesbog

Philadelphia Vireo   Island Beach SP

Red-eyed Vireo   Island Beach SP

Blue Jay   Reeves Bogs

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Fish Crow   Island Beach SP

Common Raven   Sandy Hook

Carolina Chickadee   Reeves Bogs

Black-capped Chickadee   Sandy Hook

Tufted Titmouse   Whitesbog

Purple Martin   Reeves Bogs

Tree Swallow   Reeves Bogs

Barn Swallow   BC Fairgrounds

Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Sandy Hook

White-breasted Nuthatch   S. Park Rd, Tabernacle

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher   Brig

House Wren   Manasquan River WMA

Marsh Wren   Island Beach SP

Carolina Wren   S. Park Rd, Tabernacle

European Starling   Whitesbog

Gray Catbird   Reeves Bogs

Brown Thrasher   Island Beach SP

Northern Mockingbird   Cedar Bonnet Island

Eastern Bluebird   Whiting WMA

Veery   Central Park

American Robin   Reeves Bogs

Cedar Waxwing   Island Beach SP

House Sparrow   Ocean Gate

House Finch   35 Sunset Rd

American Goldfinch   Reeves Bogs

Chipping Sparrow   Reeves Bogs

Clay-colored Sparrow   Island Beach SP

Lark Sparrow   Island Beach SP

White-throated Sparrow   Sandy Hook

Seaside Sparrow   Brig

Saltmarsh Sparrow   Brig

Savannah Sparrow   Great Bay Blvd WMA

Song Sparrow   Ocean Gate

Eastern Towhee   Reeves Bogs

Yellow-breasted Chat   Island Beach SP

Yellow-headed Blackbird   Island Beach SP

Bobolink   Brig

Baltimore Oriole   Island Beach SP

Red-winged Blackbird   Brig

Boat-tailed Grackle   Brig

Ovenbird   Island Beach SP

Blue-winged Warbler   IBSP--Blind Trail

Black-and-white Warbler   Manasquan River WMA

Nashville Warbler   Island Beach SP

Common Yellowthroat   Reeves Bogs

American Redstart   Island Beach SP

Cape May Warbler   Island Beach SP

Northern Parula   Island Beach SP

Magnolia Warbler   Island Beach SP

Bay-breasted Warbler   Sandy Hook

Yellow Warbler   Cedar Bonnet Island

Black-throated Blue Warbler   Sandy Hook

Palm Warbler   Sandy Hook

Pine Warbler   Reeves Bogs

Prairie Warbler   Cedar Bonnet Island

Black-throated Green Warbler   Island Beach SP

Northern Cardinal   Central Park

Rose-breasted Grosbeak   Island Beach SP

Dunlin, Island Beach SP The winter shorebirds are returning.

Island Beach SP 9/21--Philadelphia Vireo, Nashville Warbler

Lark Sparrow
digiscope by Andrew Marden

If you want to see good birds, hang out with good birders
                       --Birding Law #5

I bird Island Beach SP a lot, but it's always fun to go on Scott's NJ Audubon field trips which usually occur in the fall. Today, in mid-migration and with the temperature feeling like mid-summer instead of the last day of the season, we concentrated on land birds, which can be difficult with a large group (21) walking on narrow paths like Reed's Road or the "Blind" trail, but it worked out well with almost everybody getting on almost all the interesting/rare birds.

Reed's Road itself was fairly slow with a few warblers though the Nashville Warbler was a new one for the year for me, surprisingly; it wasn't until we birded the bay side that things began to pick up. While looking in some sumac we saw a couple of birds bouncing around; one of them was a Red-eyed Vireo. The other was a very yellow bird that didn't look like a warbler, because it wasn't but was a Philadelphia Vireo identified immediately by Scott. I was standing next to him (not accidentally) so I got the same two second look he and about half the group got. Not only was it a year bird for both of us, but it was also a county lifer for us. Obviously, no photos of those two year birds.

After spending most of the morning birding the northern end of the park and building up a decent list we went down to the Interpretive Center about 3 1/2 miles south for lunch. Most of the group was at the picnic tables on the west side of the building, but I and another birder took a shady table up on the porch on the south side. We had just about finished lunch when Andrew ran around the corner, shouted "Lark Sparrow!" and disappeared. I muttered, "You're gonna have to give us a little more direction than that." He reappeared with more of our group and pointed to the middle picnic table below us. "Underneath." It was had to see from ground level, but one story up, where I was, it was a great look. Then the bird disappeared and the frenzy began to refind it for all of the group that hadn't seen it.

After about 10 minutes Scott and Andrew did find the bird again. In the gravel park lot, calmly picking at the ground. It was an extremely cooperative bird. Naturally, I didn't have my camera with me. But Andrew, with a steady hand was able to digiscope the bird with my phone. It's probably a better picture than I would have gotten with my camera.

While I had seen Lark Sparrows galore in Utah & Idaho this July, this was my first in NJ this year and my first (drum roll) ever in Ocean County. Hoo boy, two county lifers in one day. That doesn't happen much anymore.

After lunch we walked the Spizzle Creek Trail and were finally able to add some long-legged waders to the day list including quite a few Tricolored and Little Blue Herons. We also found more warblers there than I usually see (the good birders law) including Cape May and Prairie Warblers. I missed Blackburnian and Black-throated Green. I just couldn't find them in trees as they jumped around. Every time somebody said where it was, it was already somewhere else. Ah well...

We then wanted to do some bird on the ocean side, but since this was last glorious day of summer, all the lots at the southern end of the park were filled and our caravan began to wander in the wilderness until Scott, pulled into the first lot with enough space for all of us--A19. You can cross over the dunes from any of the 21 parking lots along the 8 miles or so of roadway, but some of them are more arduous than others. This one wasn't too bad and while it is too early to see very many birds flying south over the ocean, we did see a lot of Sanderlings with a few other species mixed in with them.

Clay-colored Sparrow

Now, the only reason we were in that lot was because there was room. So when we returned to our cars and the trip was winding down, was it really just luck that in that random parking Scott espied, out of the corner of his eye, a really pale sparrow, or are there more rare birds about than I am able to identify? Because that pale sparrow turned out to be a Clay-colored Sparrow, my first in Ocean County this year and I guarantee you, without Scott's keen and trained eye, I'd have never have seen it. Or worse, I would have seen it and blown it off as a Chipping Sparrow, the way I did with Clay-colored Sparrow on Sandy Hook last month.

So: to summarize the tick list:
2 Year Birds
2 County Life Birds
3 State Year Birds
4 County Year Birds.

My list, which is quite a bit smaller than the group list:

57 species

Mute Swan  2

Mallard  3

Mourning Dove  3

Yellow-billed Cuckoo  2

Semipalmated Plover  4

Sanderling  250

Semipalmated Sandpiper  2

Laughing Gull  20

Herring Gull  50

Great Black-backed Gull  1

Forster's Tern  5

Royal Tern  1

Common Loon  1    Flyover

Double-crested Cormorant  2

Brown Pelican  2

Great Egret  15

Snowy Egret  36

Little Blue Heron  5

Tricolored Heron  4

Osprey  5

Sharp-shinned Hawk  2

Belted Kingfisher  2

Northern Flicker  5

Eastern Phoebe  2

White-eyed Vireo  6

Philadelphia Vireo  1

Red-eyed Vireo  1

Blue Jay  1

American Crow  1

Carolina Chickadee  5

Tree Swallow  10

Barn Swallow  1    Spizzle flyover

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1

Carolina Wren  4    Heard

Gray Catbird  10

Brown Thrasher  2

Northern Mockingbird  1    A20 parking lot

Cedar Waxwing  6

House Sparrow  5

House Finch  3

American Goldfinch  1

Clay-colored Sparrow  1

Lark Sparrow  1    Visitors Center large sparrow with harlequin facial pattern.  M.obs

Song Sparrow  1

Eastern Towhee  2

Baltimore Oriole  6

Red-winged Blackbird  5

Boat-tailed Grackle  2

Black-and-white Warbler  1

Nashville Warbler  1

Common Yellowthroat  1

American Redstart  2

Cape May Warbler  1

Northern Parula  4

Magnolia Warbler  1

Prairie Warbler  1

Rose-breasted Grosbeak  2

Sandy Hook 9/15--Baird's Sandpiper, Bay-breasted Warbler

American Golden-Plover, Plum Island, Sandy Hook

I went up to Sandy Hook yesterday for Scott's trip. I added two year birds to my list--Baird's Sandpiper and Bay-breasted Warbler. The warbler was on the Road to Nowhere (which actually goes somewhere) and was hopping around in the foliage so no photo and it isn't much of a bird in fall plumage to look at anyway. The Baird's was a flyby flyover with a call at the tip of the Hook, the identity of which I'd never know had not Scott called it out. At least I got to watch it fly and see its long wings for a good amount of time, but again, no photo.

So let me tell you about one of the other rarities we saw, the American Golden-Plover on Plum Island. Golden-plovers can be real tricky i-d's even for experts and we had a couple of experts with us. One of the problems with this bird was that we were so close to it that none of us were really used to seeing one without a scope! So close up the bill looked longer than a golden-plover's might in a scope, and the legs were also out of wack in a close view. I was pretty sure, base on "giss" that it was a golden, but I'm hardly an expert. It did seem to have a "spangly" quality to it. 

Of course, the sure-fire way to separate golden-plover from Black-bellied Plover is the "armpit" field mark. If the underwing doesn't have black patches near the body, the bird is "golden." Black patches, the much more common Black-bellied. But this bird would not move. Even though there were more than 10 people in the vicinity, it just stood there. Most of the time you don't want a bird to fly. When you do, it won't.

None of us could bring ourselves to flush the bird just to make an i-d. However, there were other people around. A couple of guys dragging a fishing net and a fisherman with his daughter. But the dragnetters didn't come close enough and the fisherman, seeing us observe the bird, politely kept his distance. Again: most of the time you're begging someone not to get too close to a bird but this time we were hoping he or his daughter would get close enough to the bird to make it fly.

Then it occurred to me that what we wanted one of them to be was akin to the concept of the "shabbos goy." On the sabbath, Jews can't do any work, and work is broadly defined even to the point of turning on lights or the heating system. So they use a work around. They hire a gentile to come in and do that for them. We wanted the same thing from the fisherman or his daughter--ethically, I can't flush the bird, but you, as a non-birder, have no compunction about walking up to it--so why don't you do it! To make the analogy perfect, one of us would have had to offer the fisherman 5 bucks to walk up the beach. 

Eventually we had to move on without being 100% sure of the bird's species. We all left except for one of our number who was stubborn. He stuck around until eventually some other kid came up the beach (who he swears he didn't pay) and scared the bird away and enabled him to see all gray beneath the wings. So we had our confirmation and our ethics. 

My list for day--note only two warblers--migration was apparently stalled over the weekend. 

45 species

Mourning Dove  2

American Oystercatcher  2    Spermaceti Cove

Black-bellied Plover  6    Spermaceti Cove

American Golden-Plover  1   

Semipalmated Plover  3    Tip area

Piping Plover  6    Tip area

Killdeer  1    Tip area

Whimbrel  1    B lot beach

Sanderling  12    Tip area

Baird's Sandpiper  1   

Spotted Sandpiper  1    Spermaceti Cove

Willet  5    Spermaceti Cove

Laughing Gull  150

Herring Gull  100

Great Black-backed Gull  200

Caspian Tern  1    Big red beak. Spermaceti Cove

Black Tern  2    Small Tern dark wings fluttering flight

Common Tern  110

Forster's Tern  2    With Common Tern Flock at tip

Royal Tern  4

Double-crested Cormorant  40

Great Blue Heron  2

Great Egret 1

Snowy Egret  2

Green Heron 1

Turkey Vulture  1

Osprey  5

Belted Kingfisher  1

White-eyed Vireo  2

Common Raven  2    Seen & Heard

Tree Swallow  15

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1    Plum Island

House Wren  3

Carolina Wren  3    Heard

Gray Catbird  5

Northern Mockingbird  1    B lot

Veery  1

Cedar Waxwing  2    Road to Nowhere

House Finch  2

Seaside Sparrow  3    Plum Island

Song Sparrow  1    B lot

Eastern Towhee  5    Heard

Red-winged Blackbird  25

Common Yellowthroat  1

Bay-breasted Warbler  1    Road to Nowhere

Island Beach SP 9/11--Yellow-headed Blackbird (County Bird)

Yellow-headed Blackbird, IBSP

There's an old saw of a birding joke where a birder wanders into a biker bar and a leather-clad biker, seeing the binoculars still hanging around the birder's neck, says to him, "Hey, you know birds, what's the name of the black bird with red wings that I'm always seeing?" And the birder responds, "That's a Red-winged Blackbird." So the biker grabs the birder by his tweed lapels and says, "What are you, an effing wise guy!"

I wonder if out west, Yellow-headed Blackbird is substituted, since its common name is equally, simplistically descriptive. Even its Latin name, Xantocephalus xantocephalus, is pretty simple: Genus: Yellowhead. Species: Yellowhead.

All this is prompted by my first Ocean County Yellow-headed Blackbird, a bird that is rare in New Jersey and practically unheard of this far north--they tend to be found either on cattle farms in Salem County or on the dikes at Brig.

It has not been an easy week so far; I've had to travel up to Rahway the last couple of days, spending time in the hospital with my mother, so when I got home late yesterday afternoon and saw the alert about the bird, I told myself I had bigger problems and didn't rush over to the gatehouse at Island Beach. I figured the bird wouldn't last past yesterday, and even if it did, I still had to go back north sometime today. I was at Whitesbog very early in the morning, doing a morning walk, when practically at the same time an alert came in that the blackbird was still persisting and a call came from my brother that my mother wouldn't be available until late in the afternoon. So I drove over to the park.

When I got there I was surprise at what a chintzy feeder the bird was visiting. Or had been visiting, since it was nowhere in sight. I was standing there, figuring I had nothing better to do, when Greg came around the gatehouse and asked if I had seen the bird because it had just flushed when he drove in. Of course, I hadn't. Typical. If I had been driving in, instead of parking outside and walking in, I'd have seen the bird.

There was a startling amount of traffic going into the park on a Wednesday morning in September--the last gasp of summer I suppose, and the ten or so blackbirds I had seen had flown to the west side of the road, so I decided to look in the high reeds over there. As I was walking around the median I saw the blackbird flying--no mistaking that yellow head--but, even though I could have declared victory, I wanted a more than fleeting look at this handsome bird--males seem even more rare than youngsters or females--so I walked along the road until suddenly the bird flew in, teed itself up on a dead branch and posed for me for as long as I wanted to take pictures. (This bird, I think, is a first year male, since it isn't completely yellow on the face and head.)

Slightly larger than a Red-winged Blackbird

I then drove up to Reed's Road and spent about an hour and half walking there--not much of note in the hot mid-morning. Highlights were a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a couple of kingfishers, and an immature Magnolia Warbler. As I was driving out I saw Mike approaching the gatehouse, so I hung with him for a while but the bird didn't reappear until a couple of hours later. Happily, persistence paid off for Mike