I have been disliking February more than I usually do--and I usually dislike it a lot. After seemingly two weeks rain, today was clear, but cold. It felt colder than it actually was because the temperatures of late have been mild. And because it has been mild everywhere, apparently, the winter birds have been sparse. Why migrate when you don't have to? I hadn't seen a new bird since the first, and I hadn't seen much of anything on the days I managed to get out.
Today I started out down at Barnegat--where, no real surprise, the ducks were few and most were distant. Cedar Run Dock Road maybe 25 Greater Scaup where sometimes, on a good winter day, you'll see them in the hundreds. Tip Seaman had a lot of geese. It wasn't until I was at the end of Great Bay Blvd that I finally saw something interesting--one of the nesting Bald Eagles bringing food to two juvenile birds. I had been looking at the nest through my scope, trying to decide if those were baby eagles I was viewing when the adult landed on the edge of the nest and began feeding the little shapes. The timing seems about right. I've seen those eagles around the nest in January and if it takes 35 days to incubate an egg, then the middle of February would be the time for young in the nest.
Since I had all of 12 species along Great Bay Blvd, I was ready to go home and get warm, but I saw that two interesting birds had been reported at Riverfront Landing in Toms River. The first, a Common Yellowthroat, wasn't enough to get me to drive up there, because, although it is rare now, in a couple of months I'll see and hear all the yellowthroats I can possibly want. But the second bird was a Redhead.
When we first moved to Ocean County, finding a Redhead was an event. I was overjoyed with the abundance of Canvasbacks at Riverfront and once in a while you'd find a Redhead with them. Then, the last few years there was an explosion of Redheads--sometimes you could find flocks of in the dozens, if not a hundred in the northern part of Barnegat Bay by Brick and there were usually a few at Lake of the Lilies. This year has been different. Early in the year there was one Redhead at Lake of the Lilies, but not when I went there. Otherwise, sightings have been scattershot. So that was worth a drive up the Parkway.
When I got there the temperature was dropping and wind was picking up and I really didn't feel like scanning through hundreds of ducks--which wasn't a problem because there weren't hundreds of ducks there. From my first vantage point there were only Buffleheads. (And, by the way, the yellowthroat was not in evidence in the bushes by the parking lot.) I went instead to another viewing point on water street where sometimes the birds emerge from behind the big houseboat moored in the marina. Sure enough, Lesser Scaup were trickling out into sight and then I saw one bird, with its head tucked in, that looked like a Redhead but it immediately drifted back behind the docks. A few more minutes of waiting and the bird came back out with the scaup. It definitely wasn't a Canvasback. Then it drifted back again. The third time it came out I thought about trying a digiscope but it is really hard to do that with frozen hands and by the time I was ready the bird had either dived or gone back to its hiding place. Satisfied with the scope looks I'd had, I packed it up and went home. Where Shari and I had 14 turkeys on the lawn and a swooping flyby of a Cooper's Hawk.
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