Meadowedge Park 1/23--Cackling Goose

The weather, as often happens in the winter, defeated me this morning. I drove down to Franklin Parker Preserve, my goals two-fold: Get another, better, look at the shrike and get a better handle on the geography of that eastern section. I accomplished the latter. I knew the weather was supposed to cold and windy today, so I thought going inland would at least mitigate the windy aspect of the forecast. Wrong. Gusts of 30 mph were blowing on the bogs and after walking all the way out to pumphouse 18 and almost out to pumphouse 19 the wind was just too much for me. When I saw an eagle blown vertical by the wind I knew I didn't care enough about seeing the bird again to search in the biting wind. A 2.7 mile round trip for a couple of eagles and a Hermit Thrush. Despite two pairs of gloves, it took miles of driving with the heat blasting before my fingers thawed. 

Have I mentioned that I hate winter? 

Later in the afternoon I saw that Meadowedge Park, in Barnegat, once again was hosting a Cackling Goose. Since Meadowedge isn't much bigger than a lot of backyards, I figured it would be a quick, binary search--there/not there. When I got to the park, I saw that almost all the geese were in the pond. Looking for a Cackling Goose in a flock of Canada Geese is like solving a puzzle. Thousands of geese and it's sheer luck if you find one. 175 geese and all you need to solve the puzzle is a little patience. Even I can look at every goose in a flock of that size, especially when they don't especially care that you're fairly close to them. 

Cackling Goose in the hexagon

I went through the flock once and came up with nothing. Halfway through my second scan I saw one goose bite another on the ass--the one with the bitten butt was the Cackler. Two-thirds the size of the biter and with a stubby little beak that didn't offer much fight back. Then the flock played 175 goose monte and I lost it. Now the game was, could I find it again. Yes, I could after a bit and then the game was could I, with no camera, manage at least a bad picture with my phone. Again it was in the affirmative, though I had to take off the glove on one hand, which almost instantly lost circulation in the wind, which, of course, being near the water, was ferocious. 

Still, at least I can count one mini-accomplishment for the day. Two, if you count avoiding frost-bite.