Jumping Brook Preserve 4/2--Palm Warbler

Palm Warbler

Back to birding my home turf. I went to Jumping Brook Preserve in New Egypt this morning. There is an extensive network of abandoned cranberry bogs and reservoirs there and I've been exploring a lot of different paths--it is only 5 miles away from Whitesbog and similar in feel, even to the point of bordering on Fort Dix. Like Whitesbog, you really have to know your way around to find the interesting spots. 

This morning the place was alive with Pine Warblers--almost any conifer you looked at had two or three flitting around the branches. At a corner of one of the bogs, pretty far in the back, I saw a small flock of them which included a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers, for which it is getting late, and then, on the ground, bobbing its tail, my first Palm Warbler of the year. Appropriate that I see one on Palm Sunday, although it is a myth that their name derives from their return coinciding with the week before Easter. First of all, Easter moves around, and birds don't look at the calendar and secondly, the name comes from them frequenting actual palm trees in the southern part of their range. 

I saw three more Palm Warblers as I walked around and my progression for this new year bird went as usual: First bird--PALM WARBLER! Cool! Second bird--and another, great. Third bird--yup, Palm Warbler. Fourth bird--yeah, yeah, yeah, Palm Warbler. 

Rusty Blackbirds, male & female

The other species that I've found the last couple of visits there is Rusty Blackbird, not an easy icterid to find in these parts. They seem to prefer the first bogs you hit as you enter, perhaps because these seem to have the most mud in them. I have no idea if anyone is controlling the waterflow in the bogs and reservoirs--the one that where last year I was finding a lot of shorebirds is now completely full and the muddy bogs in the front look like a beaver dam broke somewhere and started to drain them. 

My meanderings there produced 34 species:

Wood Duck  17
Mallard  8
Wild Turkey  1
Mourning Dove  3
Killdeer  1     Flyover
Great Blue Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  3
Bald Eagle  1
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  3
Downy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  2
Eastern Phoebe  9
Blue Jay  8
Common Raven  1     Croaking
Carolina Chickadee  2
Tufted Titmouse  4
Tree Swallow  30
Red-breasted Nuthatch  2
White-breasted Nuthatch  2
Carolina Wren  1     Heard
Eastern Bluebird  1
American Robin  1
Field Sparrow  4
White-throated Sparrow  1
Savannah Sparrow  3     Dix bogs
Song Sparrow  10
Red-winged Blackbird  1
Rusty Blackbird  4
Palm Warbler  4
Pine Warbler  25     25+
Yellow-rumped Warbler  5
Northern Cardinal  1