Whitesbog 4/17--Ovenbird, Black-and-white Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Prairie Warbler

Lower Bog at Whitebog drawn down.

Last night I saw an eBird report that referred to the "drained bog" at Whitesbog. Whoa! I hadn't been there in nearly two weeks so that was news to me. Could we have a spring shorebird season there? I was there first thing this morning and sure enough, the Lower Bog was about half empty and the first birds I saw were not the yellowlegs I thought they might be when I had just my binoculars on them but 4 Pectoral Sandpipers when viewed in the scope. I walked around to the cross dike between Lower and Middle and scoped the other birds in the bog from there--Killdeers and a Greater Yellowlegs, along with a flock of blackbirds picking at the mud with a couple of Great Blue Herons stabbing at sunfish that suddenly had very little room to swim. Tree Swallows and a couple of Barn Swallows zipped above, eating the the annoying gnats that hovered over the bog when they weren't in my face. 

Just then I saw my friend and informant coming up the dike. "What caused all this?" I asked him. It seems that the farmer was doing "repairs" on the bog (bogs are surprisingly high-maintenance) but these repairs consisted of taking out a lot of the old sluice gates to salvage the wood since the farmer had finally decided that he wasn't after all, going to try to turn these old bogs back into productive ones. Which is great news for migrating shorebirds and those who watch them. 

Once he heard that there was a spring migration as well as the fall migration, he agreed to keep the water low there for a couple of weeks. So, I'll be commuting to Whitesbog until the water levels rise. A bad case of FOMO* has developed already. Last week, when I wasn't there, my friend had, in addition to the above shorebirds, snipe, Least Sandpipers, and Black-bellied Plovers, the last notorious for doing touch and goes in the bogs--your life line and theirs have to intersect for the 10 minutes they spend in the bog before moving on. 

But shorebirds were not the highlight of the day. Warblers were. I added 4 species to the year list. The first, Common Yellowthroat, I heard calling when I was setting up the scope to scan the bog. Didn't see one today. Sometimes it takes a while before you eyeball your first witchety. I heard another while I was walking along the landing strip. When I went to look for it, I came across a Black-and-White Warbler right above my head in a low branch. It flew away before I could say the whole name aloud. Later, while circling the Lower Meadow, I heard an Ovenbird sing. I was thinking about something other than birds when the song broke through and returned me to my mission. Finally, having walked well over 4 miles in the Burlington section, I decided to drive around the Ocean County part of the bogs to see if I could add any of those warblers (or anything else) to the OC year list. By then it was well after noon and not a lot of birds were around, but I did find one corner where I had Pine, Palm and new for the year Prairie Warbler. Coming down the road were 4 or 5 unleashed dogs. I can deal with one dog off the leash, but I'm leery of multiple strange dogs so I turned back for my car. It was then that I realized I was hearing another Common Yellowthroat. Again the song burst through my other thoughts. 

For the day, 42 species:

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Mallard

Bufflehead

Killdeer

Pectoral Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Great Blue Heron

Turkey Vulture

Northern Harrier

Bald Eagle

Belted Kingfisher

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

American Crow

Fish Crow

Carolina Chickadee

Purple Martin

Tree Swallow

Barn Swallow

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Carolina Wren

European Starling

Brown Thrasher

Eastern Bluebird

American Robin

House Finch

Song Sparrow

Eastern Towhee

Red-winged Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Common Grackle

Ovenbird

Black-and-white Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Palm Warbler

Pine Warbler

Prairie Warbler

Northern Cardinal

*Fear Of Missing Out