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