Franklin Parker Preserve 1/13--Northern Shrike

That little gray & white pimple at the top of the tree is the Northern Shrike

The Year of Lousy Looks continues. This time, laziness was a factor. No matter where I stood as I circled the old cranberry bog where the long-staying and presumably returning Northern Shrike has been for the last couple of months, the shrike was always too far away to get a good look at it with binoculars. Had I lugged my scope out there I probably would have been able to see it more clearly. But that's a long haul on a cold morning. Fortunately, after I spotted a gray and white bird perched on a dead tree in the middle of the bog, it turned its head a few times letting me see its black mask, so I was able to rule out mockingbird. But again, had this been a life bird, it would have been a disappointing sighting. As it was, I was pleased that I found it on my own. Last time, 3 circuits of the bog were fruitless until a friend walked out there with me and spotted it right away. 

There were two species that actually were more interesting to me this morning than the shrike; one was the adult Bald Eagle with a ton of sticks in its talons, indicating a nearby nest and the other were the two Wilson's Snipes that flushed out of the frozen bog as I made my way around. Non-shore shorebirds are always a treat. 

Of course, lousy looks are better than no looks, which is how the rest of my day went. After lunch I had decided to go over to Toms River to see if I could spot the Canvasbacks there but just as I got in the car I received a text that a Common Gallinule had been spotted in Holly Lake in Tuckerton, so I drove down there first. 45 minutes later I was looking at a single American Coot diving beneath a dock, the only open water on the pond. I'm sure the gallinule was somewhere in the vicinity, hard up against the shore where I couldn't get an angle on it. A wise birder once told me you should stay in a place at least as long as it took you get there, but after 45 minutes I still only had the coot along with ducks, swans, and gulls...and a muskrat. 

So, back to plan A, a drive up to Toms River but by the time I got there, what with the fishermen on a sandy spit and paddleboarder making his way around the ice floes, the ducks on the water didn't seem happy and none of the unhappy ducks were Canvasbacks. Had you traced my path at both Mathis and Riverfront you would have thought I was executing a problem in trigonometry as I set up the scope at various points in both places. Big birds, hard to miss, but I missed them. Wonder where they went?