Every year a Eurasian Wigeon makes an appearance in Belmar and every year I go up there to find it. The last few years it (though who knows if it is the same bird every year) it has been a little difficult to get a look at since you either had to set up a scope in the parking lot of a gas station and look into a cove in the river, or else find just the right angle in MacLearie Park and stand on one foot and tilt you head your head just so to find the bird.
This year was supposedly easier, as the bird was being seen in Silver Lake one of the artificial ponds that dot the North Shore from Long Branch down to Point Pleasant Beach. But late in December I missed it and last week when I went up there the water was "stiff," and today when I got there I didn't see many birds on the water either. What I did see were hundreds of geese, both Canada and Brant, feeding on the grass around the lake. Wigeons are one of the few ducks that will also graze a lawn so I walked toward a big flock of geese, swerving into the street so as not to scare them all away. Not that they seemed to care that much, they're all pretty use to humans walking around. And after a bit, a few geese moved and there, almost at my feet was the drake Eurasian Wigeon, along with a few American cousins. It is such a pretty duck that it's worth the trip and the effort to find it.
I have a long history of unsuccessful attempts to find a Eurasian Wigeon before actually getting one. Our life EUWI was at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge when we lived in Brooklyn. I don't know how many trips we made there seeking one out after seeing it reported on the rare bird listserv (which shows how long ago this was) that we subscribed to.
Jamaica Bay, being one of the most famous refuges in the country and being in NYC, attracts birders from all over the world. I remember that Patrick O'Brian, the author of the Aubrey/Maturin series of naval thrillers set during the Napoleonic Wars and also an enthusiastic British birder, said that JBWR was one of his favorite places to have birded.
One day when Shari & I had gone again to find the wigeon, a birder from Australia stopped me and asked me if I could confirm an ID of a Little Blue Heron. Sort of in a rush and sort of feeling snotty, I looked in his scope, saw the bird and said, "Well, it's little, it's blue, it's a heron...it's a Little Blue Heron."
He didn't care how snarky I was, it was a life bird for him. Then I told him I had to rush because there was a Eurasian Wigeon on the other side of the pond and it was my "White Whale."
He replied (and imagine a thick 'stralian accent), "You mean, your Moby Duck."
Touché
(We got the bird that day.)
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