FREC 3/27--Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, FREC

Pre-pandemic, Mike led a series of "Birds of Jackson" trips where the group would explore a number of locations from late winter to early spring.  The trips have obviously been a no-go the last two years but there was no reason Mike & I couldn't recreate one. Yesterday, a Saturday, which is the day the trips were held, Mike and I met up at FREC (Forest Resources Education Center) a bit earlier than the trip would have started but from thereon we essentially did the full trip in order, including a stop at a Wawa on County Line Road. Besides FREC, we stopped at Butterfly Bogs for ducks, Lake Enno, which is a really obscure spot that practically no one birds but is a great place to pick up Baltimore Oriole a little later in the spring, then Wawa, a retention pond at Jackson Mills, Prospertown Lake, which still had Common Mergansers, one of the few places in the county you can find this duck, and finally, Colliers Mills, though we didn't drive up the length of Success Road out to Rt 571 as we do on the trip. 

My only new bird for the year was a little tricky to get. At FREC, just as we crossed the bridge over the mighty Toms River (barely a trickle this far upstream) Mike said he heard Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. My first reaction was, "Nah, too early." Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is just at the lower bottom of the highest calls I can hear, but I wasn't hearing this one. However, eventually the little bird showed itself high up in just-budding tree. Early, perhaps, but Saturday all of sudden, lots of gnatcatchers were reported all around Ocean County, so there must have been a push of them overnight. Later, as we walked on the other side of FREC which is just outside the limits of the Pine Barrens, we saw another and I was able to document it. 

I missed hearing Northern Waterthrush as Mike did because I was hearing a woodcock softly peent us and didn't catch the warbler in front of us. Would like to get that bird, but would really like to get LouisianaWaterthrush, a much more difficult species to find. I'll have to start haunting Double Trouble soon to see if I can stumble upon one. 

Red-headed Woodpecker, Colliers Mills

Our other accomplishment occurred at Colliers Mills. I asked Mike if he wanted to try to track down the Red-headed Woodpecker, since he needed it for the year and of course he did. We went into the woods north of the Success Road and started looking around--bluebirds and robins abounded but no woodpeckers. I told Mike I had a 50% hit rate and since I didn't see it last time I was there, we should find it. Finally, near the edge of the woods we heard the bird and started walking towards its "Queer" cry. Mike spotted the bird first and we watched it move it around but it kept coming back to one dead tree full of holes and we realized that was its nest or at least it was investigating it as one. And the tree is very easy to find with a series of landmarks but of course I'm not going to reveal that information. I'll be curious next time I'm there to see if one of those holes is occupied. 

For the day we had 51 species, an excellent count for the township:

Species          First Sighting
Canada Goose   FREC
Wood Duck   FREC
Gadwall   Butterfly Bogs
Mallard   FREC
American Black Duck   Prospertown Lake
Green-winged Teal   Butterfly Bogs
Ring-necked Duck   Butterfly Bogs
Bufflehead   Butterfly Bogs
Common Merganser   Prospertown Lake
Mourning Dove   FREC
Killdeer   Colliers Mills WMA
American Woodcock   FREC
Herring Gull   Prospertown Lake
Double-crested Cormorant   Prospertown Lake
Great Blue Heron   Butterfly Bogs
Great Egret   Butterfly Bogs
Turkey Vulture   Jackson Mills Pond
Red-tailed Hawk   Lake Enno
Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-bellied Woodpecker   FREC
Downy Woodpecker   FREC
Hairy Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Northern Flicker   FREC
American Kestrel   Colliers Mills WMA
Eastern Phoebe   FREC
Blue Jay   FREC
American Crow   FREC
Fish Crow   FREC
Carolina Chickadee   FREC
Tufted Titmouse   FREC
Tree Swallow   Prospertown Lake
Red-breasted Nuthatch   FREC
White-breasted Nuthatch   FREC
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher   FREC
Carolina Wren   FREC
European Starling   FREC
Northern Mockingbird   Prospertown Lake
Eastern Bluebird   FREC
American Robin   FREC
House Finch   FREC
American Goldfinch   FREC
Chipping Sparrow   FREC
Field Sparrow   FREC
Dark-eyed Junco   FREC
White-throated Sparrow   FREC
Song Sparrow   FREC
Red-winged Blackbird   FREC
Brown-headed Cowbird   FREC
Common Grackle   Lake Enno
Pine Warbler   FREC
Northern Cardinal   FREC