Conine's Millpond | Lenape Trail 1/12--Cackling Goose, Lark Sparrow

Lark Sparrow, Lenape Trail, Plainsboro

The day started to get a little out of control toward the middle of the afternoon. Scott & Linda had an Assunpink trip this morning and we birded the hell out of the place without much to show for our efforts, besides the continuing Trumpeter Swans. I did get my year Field Sparrow over at Stone Tavern Lake, but that's not exactly a momentous find. The lake at Assunpink was virtually empty of ducks and geese, and Stone Tavern was worse with only two Mute Swans floating around. The weather was warm, which was great, but the weather is probably warm(ish) up north, so ducks and geese don't feel compelled to head south.

Scott suggested we try nearby Mercer Corporate Park and Conine's Millpond. There were a smattering of geese at the Corporate Park, so we didn't bother to check them out, but on the millpond we found out where all the geese in the area were. We figured 2500 of them honking their hearts out. Among them were a 4 Ring-necked Ducks, 4 Mallards, and 2 Common Mergansers, but best of all, and finally, a Cackling Goose which Scott was able to tease out of the flock. It's a talent that I do not possess, the ability to look at every goose thoroughly but quickly and find the one or two that are different.  In a flock of that many geese, Scott figures the odds are with you to find a cackler, but in flock that size they all quickly blur into "goose" to me.

A Cackling Goose and a new sparrow would have been good enough for me for one day and as I was just about to leave for home one of our group received a text that there was a Barnacle Goose and 3 hybrids at Thompson Park. I had no idea where Thompson Park was. When I Googled it, I came up with a park in Monmouth County which I remembered going by a few years ago. However, there is another Thompson Park, in Middlesex County, which is where the geese were. I was reluctant to head north so late in the day, but Barnacle Goose isn't exactly a gimmee in the state, so off I went with the correct GPS coordinates in my phone. It was about a half hour drive. The park itself seemed like nothing but a big lake, full of Ring-billed Gulls and Canada Geese. We located a couple of birders we knew, got on the geese and, disappointingly, the geese in question turned out to be four hybrids of, presumably, Barnacle Goose and Cackling Goose. Some people find hybrids fascinating. Some people like teasing out the various genetic strains. I'm not one of those people. I have a hard enough time identifying full species, I don't want to spend my energy figuring out if this goose is the product of a coupling of Barnacle Goose with Canada Goose or Cackling Goose, or what sub-species of either of those geese. I just spent close to an hour with a Cackling Goose and it wasn't until the end of the 50 minutes we were there that I was able to really convince myself that I had seen enough of the goose to say it was really a Cackling Goose. So, I felt like I'd been enticed to Middlesex County until false pretenses. I wasn't angry, exactly, but I wasn't happy. I suppose if there had really been a Barnacle Goose up there and I'd missed it, I'd be unhappy, but as it was a phantom goose, I was...just ready to quit for the day.

But wait, as they used to say in the infomercials, there's more! Wherever the hell we were in Middlesex County, nearby in Plainsboro, which was, according to who you were talking to was either 10 or 20 minutes away, there was a Lark Sparrow that was very cooperative. Lark Sparrow is bird that you don't get too often and as I was up there anyway and the whole gang was going for it, I followed them to the Lenape Trail in Plainsboro near a shopping center and power line cut. It was getting late and we were in danger of losing the light, but, as advertised, the bird was very cooperative. It took me a bit longer than everyone else to find on the construction planking next to the trail, but when I finally go the right angle I saw it well. They are neat little birds, with a harlequin facial pattern and a big dot in the middle of the breast. The photo below shows the unlikely habitat it has found to its liking for the last two weeks.

If a Cackling Goose hadn't been found at Deerhead Lake in Ocean County I would have counted the day a complete success. But, as the Third Rule of Birding states Wherever you are, you should be somewhere else. However, I understand there were approximately 500 geese on Deerhead Lake. My chances of finding the Cackler?