Sandy Hook 1/1--Lapland Longspur

First bird of the year: Carolina Wren, while I was packing the car for our trip up to Sandy Hook to "Kick Off The Year List" with Scott, Linda, Carol and about 25 other birders. I checked off the trash birds for the year (Rock Pigeon, European Starling, House Sparrow) at the Wawa in South Toms River. Our first Canada Geese of the year were flying over Seven Presidents Park as we made the turn onto 36 to drive up the peninsula to the Hook.  After that, the 29 other birds for the day came from various spots on the Hook, most of it seawatching, which, I have said many times here, is not my favorite birding activity. Watching distant ducks, grebes, gulls, even Razorbills, bob up and down in the rolling ocean, dive and disappear, or vanish behind a wave, if it doesn't make me seasick, at least tries the little patience I start out with each morning. But that's winter birding because there ain't much going on terrestrially. 

Horned Larks

I like to get a minimum of one hard to find bird to start the year and today supplied two up at North Beach: a small flock of Horned Larks (not rare, but uncommon enough to comment upon) and, remarkably, a little flock of Lapland Longspurs in the same area. Surprisingly, no Snow Buntings, which the longspurs usually mix in with ("Look for the brown one" I've heard Scott yell out when a flock of buntings took to the air). Shari & I agreed we'd seen 3 of them at one time. Others counted 4.  Considering that very few of the birders in the group, including us, could remember ever seeing more than one at the same time, makes it a memorable sighting. 

The weather was great today--sunny and in the mid-50's. And the pleasant weather made Sandy Hook a pain to bird because everyone else who isn't a birder decided to take advantage of the weather to go to that National Recreation Area and recreate. Jammed parking lots, bikes on the road instead of the bike path, and dogs on the beach made it harder than it should have been to bird the area. Had it been the more expected 20 degrees and windy, we would have had the place to ourselves and frostbite would have been our biggest concern. 

My first day list totaled 38 species. Which is almost double last year's list, when it rained all day. 

Species  First Sighting

Brant  Sandy Hook

Canada Goose  Seven Presidents Park

Mallard  Sandy Hook

American Black Duck  Sandy Hook

Common Eider  Sandy Hook

Surf Scoter  Sandy Hook

White-winged Scoter  Sandy Hook

Long-tailed Duck  Sandy Hook

Bufflehead  Sandy Hook

Common Goldeneye  Sandy Hook

Red-breasted Merganser  Sandy Hook

Horned Grebe  Sandy Hook

Rock Pigeon  Wawa South Toms River

Black-bellied Plover  Sandy Hook

Sanderling  Sandy Hook

Razorbill  Sandy Hook

Bonaparte's Gull  Sandy Hook

Ring-billed Gull  Wawa South Toms River

Herring Gull  Sandy Hook

Great Black-backed Gull  Sandy Hook

Red-throated Loon  Sandy Hook

Common Loon  Sandy Hook

Northern Gannet  Sandy Hook

Turkey Vulture  Sandy Hook

Blue Jay  Wawa South Toms River

American Crow  35 Sunset Rd

Horned Lark  Sandy Hook

Golden-crowned Kinglet  Sandy Hook

White-breasted Nuthatch  35 Sunset Rd

Carolina Wren  35 Sunset Rd

European Starling  Wawa South Toms River

Northern Mockingbird  Wawa South Toms River

American Robin  Sandy Hook

House Sparrow  Wawa South Toms River

Lapland Longspur  Sandy Hook

Song Sparrow  35 Sunset Rd

Yellow-rumped Warbler  Sandy Hook

Northern Cardinal  35 Sunset Rd