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