Scott and Mike revived a trip that Pete Bacinski used to like to do in the winter, Ocean County Roads, which Shari & I nicknamed the "What's Up Dock" trip, since a good portion of it consists of driving through the marshes between Tuckerton and Manahawkin on Dock Street, Parker Run Dock Road, and Cedar Run Dock Road.
After I made another fruitless stop at Holly Lake looking yet again for the Common Gallinule, I joined the group at Tip Seaman CP on Route 9, a spot that, up until it was discovered that it had, like most Ocean County parks, very clean, very large, and very warm restrooms, was seriously underbirded.
And, while the three aformentioned roads, along with Great Bay Blvd produced a lot of birds, including a Common Redpoll at the bulwark on Great Bay Blvd, it was at Tip Seaman that I got my two year birds for the day, both unexpected species, and one, that as far as eBird is concerned, had never been noted there before.
First, while we were checking on the duckage on Pohatcong Lake (which seems an awfully phony Native Americanism, considering the lake is a pond and the pond is nothing but a dammed up portion of a stream called Gifford's Mill Run) Scott called out Red Crossbills! Once again, I had that "you don't notice the refrigerator until it turns off" sensation, as I realized I was hearing the "kip kip" of the crossbills only after Scott pointed them out. But this time at least I got to see the 3 of them flying off, finch-like across the water, silhouetted by a gray cloud. The crossbills appeared right after a small flock of Horned Larks flew over us. It's been a good year for larks in Ocean County, they seem to be appearing in all parts of it. It was also the first sighting of larks at Tip Seaman.
Then, to complete the magic of the spot where we were standing, a flock of 8 American Pipits were discovered feeding on the lawn twenty feet from us. Pipits are notorious for being flyover, so to see a small feeding flock, for a long time, watching them walk and bob their tails like Palm Warblers, was a real treat. And, naturally, none of us was carrying a camera! Pipits, it turns out, had also never been listed in eBird memory at that particular spot.
Most of the rest of the day was finding the expected waterfowl and a few raptors along. Because of the wind, not many passerines were to be found. The redpoll was a nice find but only gave brief looks. Some highlights were Common Goldeneye, a lone Northern Pintail on Holly Lake (for me), great rafts of Greater Scaup, and a couple of sightings of Red-shouldered Hawk on the Dock Roads. The only shorebird was a Greater Yellowlegs. Sparrows were sparse; we had Song, Savannah, White-throated, and American Tree, but only a few or two of each.
For the day I listed 52 species.
No comments:
Post a Comment