Ocean County 4/24-4/26--Clapper Rail, Eastern Whip-poor-will, Eastern Kingbird, House Wren, Ovenbird

House Wren, Cranberry Bogs

The year birds are slowly accumulating with each stop the last few days grudgingly giving up one new bird for the list. On Sunday I went to New Egypt to walk around Jumping Brook Preserve. I keep hoping that the drained bogs will yield an interesting shorebird but so far, I've "only" had Killdeer, Wilson's Snipe, and Greater Yellowlegs in there. Lots of Ovenbirds were singing their, to my ear, "cheffa cheffa cheffa" song; I have never heard it as the classic "teacher teacher teacher" transcription which caused a lot of confusion for me early on in my ear birding practice. Like my first Common Yellowthroats, these birds were not making a public display of themselves. A longer walk around Colliers Mills than I originally intended--the old legs were feeling good--brought me an Eastern Kingbird on the berm of Turnmill Pond. 

Yesterday I drove down to Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton. The weather felt more like mid-March than late April. I am not a happy bad weather birder. I was happy, though, to actually see a couple of Clapper Rails, one of them on the road, rather than just hear them. As to hearing birds, last night I finally heard an Eastern Whip-poor-will in our neighborhood. With the return of the turkeys and our first hummingbird, it feels like the whole gang is at last back together. 

This morning, another cloudy and cool one, I put on my muck boots and walk around the abandoned cranberry bogs on Dover Road. I wasn't really thinking of any particular bird to find there; the habitat is varied enough so that I knew a long walk would give me an interesting list. Toward the end of my time there, walking around the crumbling structures, I heard a bird that wasn't registering with me. I pulled up the Merlin app on my phone and as soon as House Wren appeared on the list I said, "Of course." The ear still has a lot of recalibrating to do. I was able to find 3 of them, one of them, appropriately enough, on the roof of what appears to me to be an old bunk house. A poor photo in the gloom was all I could manage. 

For the walk there I had 41 species, so the kind the of list I had hoped for.

Canada Goose  6
Wood Duck  8
Mallard  3
American Black Duck  6
Mourning Dove  2
Greater Yellowlegs  1
Laughing Gull  1
Herring Gull  1
Great Egret  5
Snowy Egret  1     With Great Egrets
Black Vulture  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Hairy Woodpecker  1     Near structures
Northern Flicker  2
Eastern Phoebe  1     Heard
White-eyed Vireo  1     Heard
Blue Jay  5
American Crow  1     Heard
Fish Crow  4
Tree Swallow  50
Barn Swallow  1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  5
House Wren  3
Gray Catbird  1     Heard
Brown Thrasher  1
Northern Mockingbird  4
American Robin  1
House Finch  2
Field Sparrow  3
Song Sparrow  4
Swamp Sparrow  2
Eastern Towhee  4
Red-winged Blackbird  50
Common Grackle  1
Ovenbird  1     Heard
Common Yellowthroat  3
Pine Warbler  1     Heard
Prairie Warbler  1     Heard
Northern Cardinal  3     Heard