Great Bay Blvd 9/28--Nelson's Sparrow

 I went down to Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton this morning in search of the elusive Nelson's Sparrow, which passes through in the fall. Their motto: We Skulk, You Sulk. Like other marsh birds (Sora, Least Bittern, Virginia Rail) they're not rare, they're just hard to find as they spend their time buried deep in the spartina grass. They're more like mice than birds, preferring scurrying to flying.

I had worked my way down the four miles of marsh, not finding nearly as much as I had last week when I was on an NJA field trip with Scott & Mike. Last week there were over 150 Great Egrets. This week, less than sixty. Last week 5000 eBird filter busting Tree Swallows. This week, maybe 15 or 20. And so it went, with the only really big flock of birds being Black-bellied Plovers levitating from the marsh north of the 2nd wooden bridge.

When I got to the inlet, the place where the Nelson's is found I first went left toward Holgate but the only interesting bird was a surprising Prairie Warbler in the big cedar. I turned around and walked toward the Rutgers facility through the muddy paths. Not a sparrow to be seen. I turned around again and headed back toward the path. Wait, this sounds like I had given up. I had! And of course, this immediately triggered the 2nd Law of Birding which states that you will not see the bird until you have truly given up. Because the moment I stopped looking is when I flushed a sparrow out of the grass. It flew away but followed along the edge of the shore until I came to a stand of higher grass and sure enough, there was a Nelson's Sparrow with the blurry orange chest. It teed up for a moment, gave me a good look, then dove back into the grass, never to be found again. A Seaside Sparrow a few minutes later gave me false hope, but the Nelson's was probably running around a few feet from me, unseen. But once again, pessimism prevailed productively. 

Clapper Rail, another skulker seen today

The Day List:

33 species

Mourning Dove  6

Clapper Rail  1

Black-bellied Plover  300

Greater Yellowlegs  7

Laughing Gull  125

Herring Gull  55

Great Black-backed Gull  2

Forster's Tern  45

Double-crested Cormorant  2

Great Blue Heron  7

Great Egret  58

Snowy Egret  15

Black-crowned Night-Heron  4

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  1

Bald Eagle  1

Belted Kingfisher  1

Northern Flicker  2

Peregrine Falcon  1

Eastern Phoebe  1

Red-eyed Vireo  1

Tree Swallow  15

Carolina Wren  2

European Starling  50

Gray Catbird  4

Seaside Sparrow  1

Nelson's Sparrow  1

Song Sparrow  3

Swamp Sparrow  1

Red-winged Blackbird  30

Boat-tailed Grackle  45

Common Yellowthroat  7

Yellow Warbler  4

Prairie Warbler  1

Palmyra Cove Nature Park 9/12--Least Flycatcher, Connecticut Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Canada Warbler

Pewee

Yes, it's time for the confusing fall warblers and what better place than Palmyra Cove Nature Park, hard by the Delaware River to either stay confused or sort them out. I arrived around 7:30 and started make my way up the Cove Trail. The first bird I spotted was a Least Flycatcher, new for the year. An auspicious start. I had no plan since I have only a very sketchy idea of the layout of the park and that mental picture is from last year before a lot of trails have been closed and geographic features altered due to a construction site next to the park. 

I wandered up a trail and started picking up warblers, mostly American Redstarts. On the trails, wherever I looked, little groups of birders were staring up at tall trees. I wasn't there very long before I started to run into people I know and for the rest of the day I seemed to be part of an amoeba of birders which fluctuated in size and personnel, sometimes just two of us, sometimes 4 or 5. Almost everyone I ran into acted amazed that I wasn't at Whitesbog. I offered to show my birding passport that allows me to go to other places. 

At one point, in a group with some birders I usually see at Whitesbog, one of them asked me if I wanted to go to such a such spot. Since a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse and since at that juncture I had no idea where we actually were (except for here and now), I said I had to stick with them because otherwise, I'd never get back to the parking lot. 

They were looking for a Connecticut Warbler in the mugwort. I was a tad skeptical about finding one but they certainly know better than me because without much effort, one popped up for a moment. As they run on the ground it was hard for me to see at first but then for a 10 or 15 seconds it hopped up on a fallen branch and I got field guide looks at it. 

I saw a few Blackburnian Warblers, which I was surprised to find were new for the year, and a few Chestnut-sided Warblers, which I wasn't surprised were new. By noon, I was birding only with Matt and he guided me back to the main trail and then headed off home. I was going to scout out the river, made a left and ran into Scott and Deb and a Canada Warbler that I'd never would have seen without them. We walked along the Cove trail and then onto the beach of the Delaware, picking up a nice Caspian Tern and on the decrepit boardwalk ducks and a little flock of Great Egrets. Scott asked me where I'd seen the CT Warbler but I had to give him the big "Duh" on that. I couldn't find which wooded area we were in for love or money. 

By the time we finally made it back to the parking lot it was around 3. 54 species and 5 year birds was pretty good work. I haven't added to the year list like that since spring migration. 

Canada Goose  75

Mallard  65

American Black Duck  1    Cove with Mallards

Northern Pintail  1    Cove with Mallards

Wild Turkey  3

Chimney Swift  8

Laughing Gull  10

Herring Gull  1

Caspian Tern  1

Double-crested Cormorant  2

Great Egret  9

Black Vulture  4

Turkey Vulture  7

Cooper's Hawk  1

Bald Eagle  2

Red-tailed Hawk  2

Red-bellied Woodpecker  2

Downy Woodpecker  3

Eastern Wood-Pewee  8

Least Flycatcher  2

Eastern Phoebe  1

Great Crested Flycatcher  2

Warbling Vireo  3

American Crow  4

Common Raven  1

Tufted Titmouse  1

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  3

House Wren  1    Heard

Carolina Wren  4

Gray Catbird  2

Brown Thrasher  1    Heard

Swainson's Thrush  3

American Robin  4

Cedar Waxwing  18

Chipping Sparrow  10

Red-winged Blackbird  25

Common Grackle  1

Ovenbird  1

Black-and-white Warbler  1

Tennessee Warbler  2

Connecticut Warbler  1    Gray hood yellow below bold eye ring.

Common Yellowthroat  2

American Redstart  20

Northern Parula  4

Magnolia Warbler  6

Bay-breasted Warbler  1

Blackburnian Warbler  3

Chestnut-sided Warbler  4

Blackpoll Warbler  1

Black-throated Green Warbler  1

Canada Warbler  1    Cove trail

Northern Cardinal  1

Rose-breasted Grosbeak  1

Indigo Bunting  2

Last Day of Shorebird Season at Whitesbog

Sanderling

It was raining when I got to Whitesbog this morning after not being there for a couple of days, the longest absence I've had since the end of July. The Middle Bog had lots of water in it and though it was raining fairly hard and had been since the early morning hours, I didn't think the rain could fill it up that much that quickly. And there was not, at first glance, a blessed bird in the bog, not even a duck. I drove around to the Lower Bog which was still muddy with patches of grass and there I found the usual flock of Mallards in the puddles and ditches with a few Green-winged Teals mixed in with them and finally, a couple of shorebirds--Greater Yellowlegs.  On the dam between the two bogs my friend pulled up and he told me that the boards had been put back into the gates of the Middle Bog, which is why the water was so high. And thus, the approximately 6 weeks of shorebird season at Whitesbog draws to a close. 

I would judge it to be an excellent season--not spectacular--but excellent. Almost all of the rare shorebirds we anticipate showed up this year--the only miss was Black-bellied Plover. But we had many species that are rare for the county (Stilt Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher) and shorebirds that are rare for New Jersey (Baird's Sandpiper, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Wilson's Phalarope). Western Sandpiper was also reported, but I missed that one. A new addition to the list was Sanderling, a very rare inland find. As it happens, two Sanderlings were there today, chasing each other around in the NE corner of the Middle Bog. As so often happens, the Middle Bog began attracting shorebirds mid-morning. As my friend & I stood there in there in the rain, we could see the activity picking up on the far side of the bog and driving around to there we also saw a couple of Lesser Yellows, a Pectoral Sandpiper and a couple of Least Sandpipers. Add the Killdeer that flew over us and for the last day it was a decent showing. 

Short-billed Dowitcher, Stilt Sandpiper

Other unusual birds there this season were Biff the Bufflehead who lasted through the 5th of August, a couple of Black-crowned Night-Herons one of which was there through the 12th, and a Common Merganser on Union Pond that I found this weekend. 

Just because I "declare" the season over is not to say that the shorebirds are suddenly going to stop. It will take a few days to fill the Middle Bog and probably longer for the Lower to get to capacity. But I feel that once the waters start rising it is time to start looking for confusing fall warblers. I'll still keep checking. If it takes a while for the Lower Bog to fill up, Dunlin and the aforementioned Black-bellied Plover are still possibilities and who knows what else. That's the great thing about a patch--the possibilities are fantastic even if the reality isn't. 

Whitesbog 9/1--American Golden-Plover

Where was this bird last month? True, September is a better month for American Golden-Plover, but I usually don't have to wait that long to find one picking at the mud at Whitesbog. Today, in a spritzing rain, as I drove out on the south side of the Middle Bog, I saw, naked eye, an erect shorebird with a short bill and knew immediately it was a plover. The question was whether it was Black-bellied (rare in county, no big deal in the state) or a Golden (rare in NJ, a year bird for me). A quick scope look
confirmed the latter--a golden mantle and the black on the belly extending up the vent (a great euphemism, by the way). A little odd to find it out on the mud flat when there was all that grass a few yards east of it, which is where I normally expect to see them.  

I called my friend who I figured was somewhere in the vicinity but the call didn't go through. No problem since as I was pocketing my phone I heard a vehicle coming up to where my car was blocking the road, but I didn't have to move it since it was him. I got him on the bird and he said he didn't think the bird would hang around very long. Just a feeling he had. It's true that Black-bellied Plovers are notorious for making touch and goes at Whitesbog--I remember two from last year, each one was only about a 10 minute stay, but I can't say that I've noticed that about Goldens. 

Still, he was right. I put out the alert and about a half hour later another birder showed up, but the bird was nowhere to be found. I hate being the only one to see a rarity so I was glad that at least one other birder saw it. The weather being unpleasant and it being a work day must have discouraged anyone else from coming out, which giving the flightiness of the bird, was just as well. 

But a great start to the month for me. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning is, from my perspective, perfect. Heavy rain tonight in Burlco to bring some water into the bogs and habitat for any birds knocked down by the storm, but stopping just after sunrise. 

I kicked off the month with 35 species. 

Wood Duck  5     Ditch Meadow

Mallard  15     Middle Bog

American Black Duck  1     with Mallards

Green-winged Teal  7     Middle Bog

Mourning Dove  2

Ruby-throated Hummingbird  4     Village feeders

American Golden-Plover  1    

Semipalmated Plover  5

Killdeer  1

Least Sandpiper  10

Pectoral Sandpiper  2

Semipalmated Sandpiper  75

Solitary Sandpiper  2

Greater Yellowlegs  3

Lesser Yellowlegs  15

Osprey  1

Belted Kingfisher  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1     Heard

Downy Woodpecker  2

Eastern Wood-Pewee  1     Heard

Eastern Phoebe  1     Ditch Meadow

Eastern Kingbird  1     Village Parking Lot

American Crow  2

Carolina Chickadee  2     Heard

Northern Rough-winged Swallow  1     Roosting in Union Pond

Barn Swallow  1

White-breasted Nuthatch  2     Heard

Carolina Wren  1     Heard

European Starling  4

Gray Catbird  8

Brown Thrasher  1     Garden

Song Sparrow  2

Eastern Towhee  4

Northern Waterthrush  1     Saw for a second heard chip note head of nature trail.

Common Yellowthroat  2     Heard