Meadowedge Park 4/29--White-faced Ibis, Yellow Warbler

I didn't expect to go out today as we neared our 24th consecutive hour of rain, but a report came in from Barnegat's Meadowedge Park the was too enticing to ignore. Looking at the weather map, I saw that the rain was light down there and I figured I could, at worse, sit in my car and look for the reported White-faced Ibis, a species I haven't seen in a couple of years. 

Usually, the ibises congregate on a muddy patch on the right as you enter the park, and today there were about 10 or 15 Glossy Ibises feeding there, which I quickly determined had no White-faced in with them. However, on the other side of the park, there were 3 cars and another flock of ibis feeding on the lawn of the private house next to the park. Because of the rain, there was a large puddle on the lawn and the ibises were feeding around there, along with a Greater Yellowlegs, Laughing Gulls, geese...the usual assortment. One of the cars was familiar to me, being Scott's, so I parked and walked over. Just as Scott said from the driver's seat, "It's in there, Larry," the whole f*&@#*!g flock of 90+ ibises flushed into the air. Ibises are very skittish and my approach on foot probably did the flushing. 

At least I had Scott & Deb to talk to while I tried to find & turn on my patience knob. There were a lot of herons hanging around, more than usual, perhaps because the neighboring marshes were so flooded. After 40 minutes or so, the ibises started to return to the lawn--first one or two then five, then the whole flock again and with them, yay, was the White-faced Ibis, a nice example with pink and white bare skin around the eye, pink legs, and oddly, a noticeably lighter bill than the Glossies. However, in the dreary drizzle and at the distance we stood, I couldn't get a picture. I wasn't going to approach closer and scare them all over again.  Bonus bird: while I was standing there a Yellow Warbler sang--FOY, and was, surprisingly, new for the patch. The WFIB, not surprisingly, was also a patch bird. 

My weather app made it appear that I was on the southern edge of the rain, so I thought I'd drive down Manahawkin to see if there was anything in the impoundments and walk along Stafford Road. My weather app was wrong as the "light rain" persisted. I pulled up to the trail, on Stafford to find that Scott & Deb had preceded me. We scanned the impoundments, which had a very late Hooded Merganser hen, a Tricolored Heron, and not much else. None of us was enthusiastic about walking the tick infested, soaking wet trail to the back impoundment.  

I gave it a shot to walk in the rain down Stafford toward the bridge but after a while, not seeing anything exciting, the walk failed the fun test and I turned around. Which is when I flushed an American Bittern from the reeds right next to the road, the 2nd time I've seen bittern there this month. And that was enough birding for a day I thought would only consist of feeder birds.