Barnegat Light SP 11/6--Bonaparte's Gull

Bonaparte's Gull

Hard to believe I got to November 6th before seeing a Bonaparte's Gull but it's been that kind of year. (Terrible.)  I was surprised to find that it was new for the year. I knew I hadn't seen one in Ocean, but I assumed one of the trips early in the year up to Sandy Hook had produced a sighting. I was wrong. 

It figures that on a day that promised to be warm and windless at the tippy-top of Long Beach Island, my kind of day, the tippy-top of Long Beach Island would be socked in by fog because that's what happens on warm, windless days in November. Duh.

White-winged Scoter

However, while I couldn't spend a lot of time scoping distant flocks of ducks because of the gray curtain over the water, that was all right. I don't especially enjoy scoping distant flocks of ducks. For one thing, it makes me seasick. I was able to see some ducks pretty close up, including a drake White-winged Scoter that was floating placidly in the inlet just a few feet away from the concrete walkway. And already the Harlequin Ducks are back (and flagged as rare). It seem like they stayed later than usual and showed up early. I counted 5 drakes and 3 hens in the inlet (which broke the eBird filter) the second time I climbed up onto the jetty from the beach. By that time the fog had lifted a little and I could see them off the rocks past the battery of fishing rods that lined the jetty. 

Harlequin Ducks

The scanning I did do was of the relatively new pond in the dunes that was created for nesting birds in the summer. It was full of gulls and floating among the usual big gulls was one Bonaparte's. Three Ruddy Ducks were also swimming around in the pool. An unusual duck for the park, one that I rarely see there, but then, this is new habitat for them. 

What I was really hoping for was not ducks, or gulls, or shorebirds. I wanted Common Redpolls. This being an irruption year for the northern finches and with them reported yesterday, I thought there might be a chance I'd stumble upon this occasional visitor. And while I frequented the right habitat--a stand of reeds, beach grass, and hoary mugwort that had a flock of 30 Pine Siskins feeding in it, there were no redpolls in the mix. I have seen redpolls in 2 places in NJ: Barnegat Light and our feeders. Until an Evening Grosbeak appears, the redpolls stand as the best bird we've had in the yard. 

An early walk around Cedar-Bonnet Island verged on pointless because the fog was so dense I could barely see a fifty feet in front of my though I did manage to spot a Northern Harrier as it took off from a fence post and a stop at the Bayview Marina was similarly view obstructed. 

My walk at Barnegat Light, with a stop in the Maritime Forest, some time in the dunes, and a couple of precarious climbs onto the jetty, produced 33 species. 

Canada Goose  27

Mallard  2

Common Eider  18

Harlequin Duck  8    

White-winged Scoter  1    

Black Scoter  9

Bufflehead  1

Ruddy Duck  3    

Ruddy Turnstone  3

Sanderling  12

Purple Sandpiper  2

Bonaparte's Gull  1

Laughing Gull  10

Ring-billed Gull  3

Herring Gull  250

Great Black-backed Gull  25

Royal Tern  1

Common Loon  1

Double-crested Cormorant  10

Peregrine Falcon  3

American Crow  5

Red-breasted Nuthatch  1    Heard maritime forest

Carolina Wren  2    Heard

European Starling  20

Northern Mockingbird  1

American Robin  1    Heard maritime forest

House Sparrow  5

Pine Siskin  30

American Goldfinch  1

Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich)  1

Song Sparrow  2

Boat-tailed Grackle  10

Yellow-rumped Warbler  12