Island Beach SP 10/3--Clay-colored Sparrow, Pine Siskin

Clay-colored Sparrow

As we were heading down to Cape May on Tuesday, I looked at my phone and saw that Scott had announced a flash trip to Island Beach for Saturday. Amazingly, I was able to register and pay for the trip on the web site while we were on the causeway to Avalon without making any fat-finger errors. 

Unlike the trip a couple of weeks ago, when the wind was a potential problem, the birding conditions today were excellent--clear, cool, calm. We started out on Reed's Road, a quarter mile of hard to see birds, but we all managed to get on most of them. Most interesting to me were the Blue-headed Vireos that seem to be moving through. I hadn't seen any since they were coming through in the spring. Warblers were in evidence, including an Ovenbird on the ground, and we broke the eBird filter with 3 Lincoln Sparrows.  Overhead we heard a "tweedle" which I would just let go, but Scott, of course, knew what it was and what it was was an American Golden-Plover flyover.  Also flying over was a Pine Siskin, another bird that like the Red-breasted Nuthatches of the last month, seems to be in an irruption year. After not seeing them for more than a year, I look forward to having them at our feeders this winter. 

The bird I was hoping to see today, having eluded me on my solo searches, was found in the barren stretches of the big parking lot for the bathing beaches while we were making our pit stops. There, with a few White-throated Sparrows, on the curb and jumping onto the asphalt, picking at the crab grass growing between the cracks in the cement, was my year's first Clay-colored Sparrow. The birds were skittish and kept flying into a stand of bushes, but they really wanted those grass seeds, so they kept coming back. The sparrow is so small that often a clump of crab grass was enough to hide it from view, despite the unobstructed view you'd think a sidewalk would give you. But finally it moved into the sunlight out of the shadow and I was able to get a photo of it. I didn't say a good photo. If you look at the photo closely, though, you'll see that there is some sort of growth on the bird's beak. This was useful to know, because a little later, as we were birding the dump area, we saw another Clay-colored Sparrow in the driveway, this one with normal beak. Two clay-coloreds is pretty good. 

That dump is one great place to bird and we almost skipped it through distraction. It was in there that we saw, albeit briefly, a Lark Sparrow back among the junk. The directions to the bird were "beyond the big hamster wheel, over the square piece of machinery, up from its left corner, on a bare branch of the tree in back" and then, a Wood Thrush chased it away because that bare branch must be a valuable piece of avian real estate. 

White-crowned Sparrow (imm)

We also covered the Tidal Pond trail--warblers, Brown Creepers, Winter Wren, Belted Kingfisher, and made our last stop at Spizzle Creek which was loaded with White-throated Sparrows and juncos, as well as some warblers we hadn't seen earlier--Chestnut-sided, Pine, and Prairie. We also had a big flock of Black-bellied Plovers fly over and, on the way out, an immature White-crowned Sparrow feeding among the white-throats. Last week while I was at Spizzle Creek I briefly saw an immature White-crown and found that in September it was "rare." Today, just "infrequent." 

It was fun but exhausting. Looking deeply into cedars for flitting birds puts a strain on your brain and wears you out. The great birders just have to see what's making that noise. The mediocre birders like me, after 7 or 8 hours, are ready to concede to the bird's elusiveness. 

For the day 75 species. Pretty amazing when you consider it took me 4 days to get 82 in Cape May. 

Mute Swan  4

Wood Duck  7    Flyover

American Black Duck  1    Flyover

Black-bellied Plover  60

American Golden-Plover  1    

Pectoral Sandpiper  1    Flyover

Laughing Gull  5

Herring Gull  20

Great Black-backed Gull  1

Caspian Tern  2

Royal Tern  3

Double-crested Cormorant  50

Great Blue Heron  3

Great Egret  1

Little Blue Heron  7

Sharp-shinned Hawk  1

Belted Kingfisher  3

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker  2

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1

Downy Woodpecker  1

Northern Flicker  4

Merlin  2

Peregrine Falcon  1

Eastern Wood-Pewee  2

Eastern Phoebe  5

Blue-headed Vireo  4

Red-eyed Vireo  5

Blue Jay  1

American Crow  3

Common Raven  2

Carolina Chickadee  2

Tree Swallow  100

Golden-crowned Kinglet  1

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1

Red-breasted Nuthatch  4

Brown Creeper  5

House Wren  1

Winter Wren  1

Carolina Wren  2

Gray Catbird  40

Brown Thrasher  2

Northern Mockingbird  3

Veery  1    Heard Reeds Road

Wood Thrush  1    

American Robin  2

Cedar Waxwing  1

Pine Siskin  2    Flyover plus one on Reeds Road

Clay-colored Sparrow  2    

Lark Sparrow  1    Dump large sparrow with heavy bill and harlequin face

Dark-eyed Junco  15

White-crowned Sparrow  1    Juvenile Spizzle Creek

White-throated Sparrow  30

Song Sparrow  2

Lincoln's Sparrow  3    Exact count Reed Road

Swamp Sparrow  3

Eastern Towhee  1

Red-winged Blackbird  10

Boat-tailed Grackle  1    Spizzle

Ovenbird  1    Reeds

Northern Waterthrush  1    Tidal Pond

Black-and-white Warbler  5

Common Yellowthroat  1

American Redstart  2

Cape May Warbler  1    Tidal Pond

Northern Parula  3

Magnolia Warbler  2

Chestnut-sided Warbler  1    Spizzle

Blackpoll Warbler  5

Black-throated Blue Warbler  1

Palm Warbler  3

Pine Warbler  5

Yellow-rumped Warbler  3

Prairie Warbler  1    Spizzle

Scarlet Tanager  1    Female. Reeds

Northern Cardinal  1    Heard