Island Beach SP 5/17--Bay-breasted Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler
Photo © Steve Weiss

Bay-breasted Warbler (female)
Photo © Steve Weiss

I went to Reed's Road this morning, hoping to fill in some of the gaps on my warbler list. After meeting up with Steve and bushwhacking through some of the more remote areas of The Bowl, I had a pretty successful day. The first new one was a Bay-breasted Warbler Steve found high in an oak (if memory serves) that I got a crappy look at. However, there were a few mystery birds along the way that Steve took photos of (my camera is way to slow for active warblers) and one of them turned out to be a female Bay-breasted. The most common warbler of the morning was American Redstart, but the runner-up had to be Blackpoll Warbler. We saw a lot of them, including a couple of the mystery birds which also turned out to females. Since Blackpoll Warbler's song is much too high, thin, and soft for my old ears, my only chance to add them to the list is through sight. To see more than one flitting around in the trees was delightful. 

The best bird for us was finding, deep in a tangle, a Canada Warbler. We'd been alerted to the presence of the species by another birder who'd been there earlier, but I didn't really hold out much hope for actually seeing one. While not unexpected in migration, they are flagged as "infrequent" on the eBird checklist. I'll say! Years go by without me seeing one. Happily, Steve managed to get a picture of the bird which did its best to elude us. As almost a by the by, there were a few Magnolia Warblers also around; while not a year bird for me (Mexico, Burlco), it was a county bird.

Other cool birds: Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Least Flycatcher, and 5 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, 4 males and 1 femme. All the while we were there, we were keeping an eye on the rare bird reports to see if anyone else found the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that was photographed at Jakes Branch Park in South Toms River. As these birds tend to be fleeting (the one that stayed on Whitesbog for 3 or 4 days a ways back was a real anomaly), it wasn't a big surprise to us that it wasn't rediscovered and we were happy we didn't waste the gas to go find it. 

After we split up, I took a walk along the Spizzle Creek Trail. The marsh was inundated, but there were  a few species of shorebirds and waders around. Nothing new or of note, though.

Reed's Road list:

48 species
Mallard  4
Mourning Dove  1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo  2
Laughing Gull  50
Herring Gull  5
Great Black-backed Gull  1
Forster's Tern  1
Double-crested Cormorant  55
Turkey Vulture  2
Osprey  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Merlin  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  2
Least Flycatcher  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  5
Eastern Kingbird  2
White-eyed Vireo  2     Heard
Yellow-throated Vireo  1
Blue-headed Vireo  2
Red-eyed Vireo  5
American Crow  1
Fish Crow  3
Carolina Chickadee  5
Tree Swallow  1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
House Wren  1     Heard
Carolina Wren  2     Heard
Gray Catbird  30
American Robin  1
Cedar Waxwing  3
House Finch  1     Heard
White-throated Sparrow  2     Late. One brighter than the other.
Song Sparrow  2
Eastern Towhee  20
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Black-and-white Warbler  5
Common Yellowthroat  10
American Redstart  20
Northern Parula  2
Magnolia Warbler  3
Bay-breasted Warbler  2
Yellow Warbler  6
Blackpoll Warbler  7
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Canada Warbler  2
Northern Cardinal  2     Heard
Rose-breasted Grosbeak  5
Indigo Bunting  1     Heard