Double Trouble SP 6/1--Olive-sided Flycatcher

I started the new month off at Whitesbog, walking deep into the woods around the abandoned Antrim Brook bogs, hard by Fort Dix, with my friend who not only knows every trail in there but has made some of them. We weren't though, in the woods when we heard my first rarity of the month. We were walking near Big Tank when we heard "Keer keer keer," a Red-shouldered Hawk that, according to my informant, has been hanging around the Upper Reservoir all spring.  We heard it multiple times but could never get highs on it through the dense trees lining the road. We heard it move off and continued what eventually became our 6 mile looping walk. 

While we were somewhere around Otter Pond (now a meadow since it breached in the Upper Reservoir's catastrophic flood of a few years ago) I got a text from Steve alerting me to a rarity over at Double Trouble about 15 miles away or the next universe depending on how you measure distance. I wasn't planning on going over there but I was happy to have the knowledge. 

As I was leaving, my friend asked me if I'd seen the Bufflehead in the Middle Bog over on the Burlco side. I'd missed it coming in but quickly found the drake in the corner of the bog. It has been there, again according to my informant, for the last few days, ever since the storms came through. He theorized that it's injured and that is probably the reason the little duck isn't long gone to its breeding area. 

I had an errand to do after I left Whitesbog (I often combine a dump run with a visit there), and after leaving the dump I still had some energy so I opted for Double Trouble after all. The rarity there is a bird that has shown up in the park in the past--an Olive-sided Flycatcher--and since I knew the exact spot it was visiting I couldn't pass up the binary opportunity of it's either there or it isn't. After chasing a gull yesterday up and down the bayshore, I wasn't in the mood for search of hither and yon. 

I walked over to the sawmill and looked around all tops of the dead trees but didn't see the bird. It was late morning and not many birds were evident, though on the first of the month, even a robin can trigger a list. I decided to walk to where an OSFL had spent some time a couple of years ago, the cedar restoration are, and if it wasn't there, go home. It wasn't there and I was going home when, passing the sawmill again I saw a bird perched on the highest branch of a dead tree. It was silhouetted against the sun but just by behavior and profile I knew it was the flycatcher. By the time I got around the sawmill, closer to the stand of trees, the bird had flown. But then, as if materializing, it was on another branch and this time I could get some details on the bird though again I was going by the field marks of large head, apparently short tail, "vest." It disappeared to the left then reappeared with, off all things in its mouth, a big fly (or other kind of insect I suppose). Once I heard it sing the song transliterated as "Quick three beers" though it doesn't sound like that to me.

I took all the lousy pictures I could and then, having added a few more month birds as well as this year bird decided that noon was a good time to go do something else for the rest of the day.