When I played Scrabble with my father and one of us put down a challengeable word or "opened up" the board, the other would laugh and shout "MAYjor Blunder!" Yesterday, with a chance at a life bird, I didn't go to Brig. I had my reasons. I can hear my father crowing, "MAYjor Blunder!" and pounding the table.
I was on Great Bay Boulevard at Tuckerton yesterday, just after noon, about a mile and half away from my car, when I saw on JerseyBirds that a Northern Wheatear was being seen at Brig along the south dike, just past the tower, on the rocks. Tuckerton is only about a half hour from Brig, maybe less if you make the lights, but I was also about a half hour away from my car. I had timed my trip to Tuckerton for low tide, and after more than 5 hours there, I was watching the tide come in, filling up the marshes and disappearing the sand bars. My reasoning was that if the wheatear (a notoriously flighty bird) was feeding on the rocks, the incoming tide would soon cover those rocks and the bird would take off long and I'd hear, "Ew, you just missed it," by the time I got down to Goose Marker 7.
I couldn't have been more wrong. The bird stayed there all day, running up and down the rocks and beach, giving something like 75 birders great looks. I should have gone. I was pretty angry with myself all day (and still am) but I'd be angrier if I hadn't learned in college psychology that we don't, in actuality, do what think, but think what we do. Since I didn't go, all those tide calculations were just a rationalization for not wanting to go to Brig yesterday. Maybe I was tired, maybe I was afraid of a wasted effort, maybe I was put off by the prospect of a bird mob, maybe it was a combination of all that & more. But I missed the bird.
Today, knowing that the chances of the wheatear still being there were slim, I went anyway. Aggravation as penance to my life list. I was hoping that at least I would see the Lapland Longspur that has been hanging around for at least a week. As expected, the wheatear was probably a third of the way to Africa while a dozen forlorn souls stood on the south dike waiting for Godot.
And the longspur? Oh, that was seen a number of times, but not by me. I hung out in the area where it has been seen, up along the south dike around the 15 MPH sign, but it never came out on the road while I waited. Too much traffic on a Saturday morning. I stood there for 15 minutes, maybe more, until I could stand the "birds I have seen" stories no longer. When some guy started talking about a caracara that was in Middlesex county in the 70's, it was too much for me and reminded me why I hate waiting for a bird to appear. Finding rare birds is a thrill; chasing rare birds is a drudge.
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| Vesper Sparrow |
He couldn't and had to get home, leaving me there with my hand over my eyes, thinking that maybe birding was starting to pall--a hobby isn't supposed to make you want to scream. When I took my hand from my face, I saw a bird in the path. Binoculars showed me the big, white wall tire eye ring. I at least had a year bird. Not a rarity. An infrequently sighted species was the best I could do, but I go long spans between sightings.
For all my kvetching, I did manage 53 species, driving and walking various parts of the refuge. But I let a really rare bird slip away out of sheer fecklessness.
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| Fish Crow |
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