Brick 2/10--Redhead

Used to be, 'round these parts, finding a Redhead was an event. What you'd do is go over to Toms River and sort through the Canvasbacks at Riverfront Landing or across the way at Mathis Park (the most reliable spot in Ocean County for these big ducks) and maybe you'd find one duck that in the glare and distance was most probably a Redhead. Once in a while maybe there'd be one with the scaups on Lake of the Lilies in Point Beach. It's a great looking duck and worth the search. 

Then, a few years ago, for some inexplicable reason, large rafts of Redheads appeared on upper Barnegat Bay off of Mantoloking in Brick, mixed in with the Greater Scaup. Suddenly, you went from being happy with one to getting flagged on eBird for listing 60, 100, 150 Redheads. What made this obscure part of the bay attractive to aythya no one knows. I'd guess it was just chance at first ("everybody's gotta be some place," as the philosopher Myron Cohen observed) and then they returned to the same spot as people do who really like Disney World. 

This year I've only made one trip to Lake of the Lilies and there was no Redhead there and Riverfront's Canvasbacks weren't hiding one either, so last month, after I got the car serviced in Lakewood I drove over to the same area in Brick where a large raft kept popping up on eBird. It was a snowy/sleety day and of course, I couldn't find a single Redhead. 

I don't have much occasion to be up that way and I was hesitant about making a special trip "just to get it on the list," but when I saw that Mike had 150 of them yesterday, I was tempted. I really like Redheads. As it happens, Mike & I were birding together today down in Manahawkin and on Cedar Bonnet Island; we had a pretty good day, highlighted by two Tricolored Herons that flew over us and landed in the marsh at Manahawkin. Not year birds for either of us, but still a rarity this time of year. 

After we'd finished walking around Cedar Bonnet and had logged over 4 miles for the day, the thought of all those Redheads still nagged at me. I doubted the flock would suddenly disappear and the day was clear and just above freezing so I got on the Parkway and drove the 25 miles or so up to Brick where I found the Redheads just where they should have been. No glare to deal with, just distance and overcast conditions but, without being totally anal about, I did count 80 birds mixed in with the Greater Scaup flock of about 200. Diving ducks are hard to count because at any one time a third to a half of them are under water. Anyway, "you only need one." I just wish I could have taken better pictures of this handsome bird, but distance and lighting conditions were against me with both my camera and my phone pressed against my scope's eyepiece. At least the drive was not for naught. 

Mixed flock of Redheads and scaup