Great Bay Blvd | Huber Preserve 5/16--Pacific Golden-Plover, Acadian Flycatcher, Prothonotary Warbler

Pacific Golden-Plover, Great Bay Blvd (digiscope)

My plans for today of a long walk around Reeve's Bogs followed by a trip to the Huber Preserve were disrupted by yesterday's incredible find of a Pacific Golden-Plover down on Great Bay Blvd.  I was down in Tuckerton on Friday but couldn't do the whole road due to a brush fire just before the second bridge. Ironically, just a few dozen yards north of the fire is where the plover was found the next day. Was it there Friday and I missed it in the hubbub? My pride tells me no. By the time I found out about it yesterday it was mid-afternoon and while I could have rushed right down there, fecklessness kept me at home.

But I awoke at 4 this morning and said to myself, "Well, if I want to go to Reeve's, I better go down to Tuckerton now." I arrived there at 5:45 AM, just about at lowest tide and started looking. There was one other birder there, which surprised me but I was happy to have beaten the frenzy. Of course, all the mud flats I looked at were full of birds I didn't want to see today, whereas normally I'd be thrilled with the variety. Up the road I saw the birder who'd found the plover originally and her friend scanning the marsh. Rule #4 of Zirlin's Laws of Birding says 

    Don't look for the bird, look for the birders

so I ambled up there and set up my scope with them. No luck though she did find a couple of Whimbrel (new for the county for both of us) and I found a Ruddy Turnstone sticking out brightly against the drabness of the distant peeps. 

She wandered down the road toward the boat launch area that had been on fire Friday. Rule #5 says

    If you want to see good birds, hang out with good birders.

I figured, she found it once, she can find it again. And, just about when I caught up with her she said, "Check out that bird, I think it's the one." I put up my bins and saw a plover that didn't look Black-bellied, but it was moving in and out of the marsh grass. Happily I was lugging my scope so instead of haplessly trying to find the bird with it, I ceded it to her and she got on it almost immediately. Yep, that's the plover. She called for the other birders to come down and four of us tramped a little way into the marsh, set up our scope and started watching the bird in earnest, losing it for a moment behind clumps of vegetation, refinding it, losing it again. Naturally, I'd left my camera in the car, though I suspect I wouldn't have done my much good, given the lighting conditions and distance of the bird. I was able to digiscope photos that document my sighting and really, that's all I cared about. 

While this wasn't a life bird--the last one I saw was on Lady Elliot Island off the coast of Australia--it did check a lot of boxes:

    Year bird✅

    County bird✅

    State bird✅

    US bird✅

    ABA bird✅

    Western Hemisphere bird✅

It was about 7:15. A couple of birders arrived and I said goodbye. I could feel the onrushing tide of birders coming down and let's just say I wanted to make room for them. In 45 minutes I was where I originally planned to be, Reeve's Bogs, glad to see that the front bogs were low and that they were attracting the commonplace sandpipers like Solitary, Spotted, Least, and Lesser Yellowlegs. I was wearing my new Muck Boots and fearlessly sloshing through the flooded trails, checking out an amazing number of insectivorous pitcher plants growing along the edge of what I believe is called Bear Pool, as well as Spoonleaf Sundew. Not a good place to be a fly. I also heard a Hooded Warbler, my first for Reeve's. 

Prothonotary Warbler, Huber Preserve

I was dithering about whether Huber would be active in the late morning but decided that the one bird I hoped to see would probably be around. I walked in to the wood bridge, hearing, but not seeing, a good variety of birds (cuckoos, pewees, Ovenbirds, and, of course, Prairie Warblers) until I got to the T where I saw an Eastern Phoebe. I decided to hang out at the bridge for a half hour and see what flew in. It didn't take long for my target bird to arrive--a beautiful Prothonotary Warbler. I'm pretty certain they nest in the vicinity of the stream. It is almost a dead certainty that in the spring you'll find one there. Also "singing" and flitting around in the crown of the trees was an Acadian Flycatcher: Pizza! Having heard Hooded Warbler, I decided again venturing down the trail any farther to the spot where they nest. It was almost noon and I'd had enough. I bird every day, but I don't bird all day.

I looked at the eBird reports on my phone. 30, 40, 50 reports of the plover. The fishermen and crabbers must have wondered what the hell was going on down there. I was glad to be 30 miles away.