Island Beach SP 3/2--Thick-billed Murre

Mike and I inadvertently started a birding contretemps today and it just reaffirmed to me why I disdain social media and avoid most of its manifestations. We started the day at the extreme north end of Island Beach SP, accessing the beach on Two Bit Road. It was cold and windier than we expected and at first it didn't look like the ocean held much of interest. Mike found a few gannets which at least made it worth making a list. A Common Loon. A few Black Scoters were flying around or sitting on the water.  Then Mike called out "Razorbills" and then almost immediately retracted it. "I think they're murres." Bobbing around in the ocean about a third of the way to the horizon were 4 (or 5) alcids. I looked in his scope and agreed that they weren't Razorbills because the bills were all wrong--Razorbills are aptly named.

One of the birds separated from the group and I was able to study that one in my scope--it had a sharp pointed bill, dark head, light flanks. The group was lost and found in the swells and photography was out of the question.  We couldn't remember the differing field marks that distinguish Common Murre from Thick-billed Murre, so we just called it "murre" until we got back to the car and consulted Sibley's. There we saw that the bill wasn't long enough for Common and the head didn't have enough white on it either. A pretty good rare bird and an immediate dilemma.

Once we listed it on eBird (which I do immediately) it would hit the rare bird alerts, usually within the hour. If we also listed it on the local rare bird alert that we all subscribe to, we'd probably have 20 birders flocking to the beach. Except the birds were far out, drifting, and there were no "sea marks" like a buoy or tower, as at Barnegat Light, to give some sense of location. By the time anyone got there, who knows where the birds would be? And we weren't interested in hanging around and tracking them down the beach, or being the ones to say, "OOH, you just missed them."  So we just let it go with the eBird alert, though we did tell Steve when we ran into him later on Reed's Road.

We both figured the sighting would be met with dubiety but we know what we saw. And I'm not concerned with confirmation because I don't confuse confirmation with validation. But I'm not happy that this is both a state and county bird (#300 no less) for me--I'd prefer, frankly, a better-looking bird and one that I could photograph

Had I seen a alert would I run to Island Beach? No, because I'd figure my chance of seeing the birds was nil. Others, apparently don't feel that way, because, though it took a little while, we got some unpleasant blowblack on the alert app. I explained our reasoning which didn't seem to placate the complaints.

I have found some rare birds and I report them on the alerts and eBird, but they're always birds that have a chance of being refound. I hate getting rare bird alerts like "Rare X just flew over the parkway" or "Rare X flying over fields," or "Rare X seen from my boat," because, since I can't do anything with this information, it feels like the reporter is just boasting (or rubbing it in). These birds felt the same way to us.

eBird, unfortunately, is a kind of social media platform--I find it creepy that people can tell where I've been all day. I could hide my findings, I suppose, and just use it as a private database, but that seems petulant. I keep the rare bird alerts on my phone to a minimum and stay off the public side unless I have something pertinent and important to add.

After my one short post on the alert I let it be--one of my strict rules is I never argue on the internet. But the conversation continued without me. The last time I looked at the app I thought, "This is supposed to be fun, I don't need this gas."

Laughing Gull

Meanwhile, Mike and I continued down the length of Island Beach which only got windier. Finally, we headed back to the mainland going up to Brick to look for Redheads, which we didn't find, and then up to Point Pleasant where Lake of the Lilies had plenty of scaup and one coot, Little Silver Lake had a Pied-billed Grebe and finally over to the Manasquan Inlet to see if there were any interesting gulls besides the continuing, over-wintering Laughing Gull which we found immediately. The answer was no. 

By then it was mid-afternoon and on the way back to Mike's my phone started to blow up. Sorta sorry I ever saw the damn birds to begin with.