Cranberry Bogs Dover Road 1/30--Northern Shrike

Northern Shrike
Photo © Dianna Lieter

I was standing on line at the PABT, waiting for the bus to Toms River when the alert came in: Northern Shrike in the old cranberry bogs along Dover Road. Since these bogs are not heavily birded, there was some confusion as to where they were and how to access them. The land is state land, officially part of the Double Trouble SP, but because the access to the main path in is adjacent to private property, and the property owner is not friendly, a place to park and way in is tricky. You can park across the street from an unmarked trail and wind up pretty close to the where the bird's location was pinned, but unless the weather has been exceptionally dry, you better be wearing high boots. You can also park around the power line cut and walk over the hill past a huge sand pit and and get to the bogs that way, but it isn't the ideal place to park on busy CR 530.

As everyone was going back and forth on the logistics, I boarded the bus. I thought if the bus didn't get caught in traffic, I'd have a shot at getting in there before sun down. Then my phone rang and it was Bob D asking me for directions to the spot, since his Waze wasn't working. (Waze, by the by, is the app that was bringing people to the middle Colliers Mills when they wanted to go to the Borgata, so maybe he was better off.) I gave him directions from Exit 80 on the Parkway. The woman on my right glanced up when she heard, "Park at the power line cut."

I was also texting with my friend Steve, who just happened to be in the area, giving him directions as to where to park. Meanwhile, some intrepid--and fast out the door--birders had relocated the bird in a different park of the bogs. Frustration, on my part, mounted.

Bob D called me again. He had overshot the mark. I turned him around and again, the woman next to me looked up when I said, "Maybe park across the road by the No Dumping sign."

I was weighing the idea of just going home and trying for the bird tomorrow but the bus was making good time and we pulled into the Toms River Park & Ride just shy of 4 o'clock. From there, it is only about a 10 minute drive. When I got near the power line cut I saw 6 or 7 cars parked helter skelter, some of which I recognized, so I knew I just had to stop. I hustled up the hill and started walking the cut through some puddles on the trail until I realized that the bogs were overflowing and that I'd never get through just wearing my boots.

I turned around and walked through the old "village" which consists of a broken down barracks-like building, a cinder block building or two and something that might have been a barn. I walked over the trail where the bogs are nearly breached and thought the best idea would be a straight shot along the eastern edge of the bogs. It wasn't, because the that trail had grown up quite a bit more than the last time I was there. As I was half-running through shoulder high grass, Bob D called me, jubilant. He had seen the bird. I could see him across a bog, on the trail I should have taken. He told me that the bird was in sight and that A & B & D & D & D & V had it in the scope.

I turned the corner on to a more trampled down path and started running for real. My friends saw me and urged me on. I got a quick look at the bird in the scope and then it dove down. Well, I'd seen it, anyway.

My doc shot

However, patience paid off, because the bird popped up again (it was across yet another bog--I say bog, but technically it was probably a reservoir) and Dianna put it in the scope for me. Beautiful look. Then it flew around to a few more trees and, as the sky darkened, perched up in a bare tree, nicely silhouetted, showing its hooked beak. I took some photos just to document it. From the shape of the bird's beak you can tell it is a shrike, but you needed to see it in the scope to see the thin black mask to distinguish it from a Loggerhead Shrike.

This is the second time in a year that I've been on a bus back from New York and a rare bird has appeared in Ocean County. Last year it was a Summer Tanager on Cedar Bonnet Island. Since I only go to NYC about 3 times a year, those are pretty amazing odds.

And the guy who originally found the bird? What he was doing out there to begin with remains a mystery.