Shelter Cove Park | Cattus Island CP 2/3--Virginia Rail, Killdeer

Killdeer

For years, Killdeer was a bird I would pick up casually, early in the year. I would simply stop off at the Wawa on Route 70 in Lakewood and there'd they be, in the undeveloped field next to the parking lot. When we did the World Series of Birding in Ocean County, that's where we stop to pick up Killdeer...and lunch. 

But fields don't stay undeveloped too long in Lakewood and now there is a self-storage facility going up where Killdeer once roamed. So this morning, wanting to get out after being cooped up in the house during a two day snowstorm and wanting something new, I hied myself to Shelter Cove where Killdeer had been reported on the playing fields. I found them right away on the snow-covered fields and could have just left, but I wanted pictures for this entry so I walked out toward them. Mistake. The fields were a layer cake of wet--a thin coating of snow  atop a thin layer of ice atop two inches of water, making for cold, hard going as I tromped out toward them getting just close enough for the zoom on the camera without spooking them, too much. It seemed odd to see shorebirds on snow. I remembered as I walking in the parking lot that the first place in the county that I saw Killdeer was on the median at the entrance. Funny how those memories stick with you.

Savannah Sparrow

Not much else was on the slushy acres; some geese and a couple of Ruddy Ducks in the bay. In the parking lot, just as I was about to leave, I came upon a small flock of Savannah Sparrows. The other interesting birds that had been there during the storm--pipit and Horned Larks--were not in evidence, though I heard the larks, in big numbers, turned up after I left. 

My next stop was a few minutes north at Cattus Island CP where most of the action for most of my visit was at the feeders. Very little to be seen along the mostly snow-covered paths. When I'd come to a bare spot in the path it would feel weird to be walking on solid ground--and quiet too. With each step breaking through ice I wasn't going to sneak up on any birds when I sounded like I was walking on Rice Krispies. Even the bay was frozen to a large extent with only a few Buffleheads and a Red-breasted Merganser in the open water. 

But, coming back, I had just started walking on the boardwalk that goes through the marsh to the parking lot when I flushed a bird from beneath the boards. It flew up and quickly disappeared in the reeds, but in the few seconds it was in flight I recognized it as a Virginia Rail--rare in winter and hard to find anytime and mostly heard. This isn't the first time Virginia Rails have been in that marsh and I've flushed them in another part of the park too, but to get one in the dead of winter was a thrill. That is why I go out birding. I only need one cool bird for the day to be a success. 

My last two stops were searches for waterfowl. Marshall's Pond (mostly frozen) had a drake and a hen wigeon along with Ring-necked Ducks among its hundred geese and Riverfront Landing had lots of ruddies and Mallards, along with a some Lesser Scaup and, what I really came to find, 3 Canvasbacks that I had to find just the right angle to see as they floated around the piers and boats of the marina. 

A good day. Two days of counting juncos in the backyard can get old fast.