A rare day when Shari's schedule was clear, and we could bird together. The original idea was to track down the Gray Kingbird at Barnegat Light, but that went by the board when it disappeared Sunday. Still, we thought Barnegat Light was a good place to go because we could make a stop at Cedar Bonnet Island first. I thought a quick look around, then onto the Light. That plan got derailed as we kept finding nice birds, most of them new for the year for Shari, like the tanagers, the orioles, and the different vireos, but we also added 4 species to my year list, one of them a real rarity.
Two of my new birds I owe to Shari and the other two to Chris, who is, as they say on the Wall Street, the axe of Cedar Bonnet--that is the top guy for that spot. When we first got there, Shari spotted a warbler that, like warblers do, wouldn't stay still long enough to get a great look at, but she saw the different parts of the bird as if hopped among the oak leaves and then sat down with app and built a bird--it turned out to be a female Blackburnian Warbler--once she showed me the picture on the app I knew from my brief looks, that she was correct.
Even though Cedar Bonnet is a migrant trap, you wouldn't expect to find a Northern Waterthrush there as there are no freshwater ponds or streams, yet, once Chris called our attention to it, we distinctly heard one singing multiple times from a wet area off the trail, behind a dense wall of trees and brush. We surmised that this one just dropped down any old place in the morning, exhausted from flying all night.
Shari & I finally tore ourselves away from the alley of trees where the passerines all are, to walk a little bit in the restoration area. At the Fisherman's Trail, we finally saw the Willet that had been calling the entire time we'd been there, and then Shari spotted a sandpiper in the grass, right along a little rivulet. My first reaction was semi sand, but looking more closely, it seemed to big and then seeing the crossed feathers at the rear, I knew we had a White-rumped Sandpiper.
Now we were ready to leave, but walking back to the entrance, through the alley, we saw Chris again, who said they'd just had a Cerulean Warbler. Whoa! Ceruleans are rare in the state almost everywhere but in the extreme NW. You expect to find them very high up in trees, not on a little reclaimed dredge spoil. But then again, when you're migrating, and you're tired, you plop down wherever. It took a little while to get back on the bird, but we did manage to see it clearly, with a Northern Parula making it more difficult as it followed the Cerulean from tree to tree. "There it is! No, that the parula." Interestingly, Cedar Bonnet was involved in my last sighting of a Cerulean, 4 years ago. Mike & I were birding the island when another birder told us about the Cerulean at Barnegat Light. I was dubious, but Mike was driving, so we went up there and got it without much difficult. I still remember the tree it was in--a very small, low tree, that doesn't seem to have grown much over the years. I could have picked that warbler off the tree like it was a piece of fruit. Shari said today, after we got our looks at the bird, "Good, now we don't have to go all the way up to Old Mine Road (at the Delaware Water Gap) to see one."
We finally did make it up to Barnegat Light. Aside from getting Shari her American Oystercatchers, it wasn't all that interesting. But how were we going to top a Cerulean anyway?
Our Cedar Bonnet list:
41 species
Mute Swan 2
Mallard 17
American Black Duck 4
Mourning Dove 20
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
White-rumped Sandpiper 1
Willet 2
Forster's Tern 2
Double-crested Cormorant 50
Great Egret 2
Snowy Egret 1
Glossy Ibis 22
Osprey 1
Belted Kingfisher 1
Eastern Kingbird 1
White-eyed Vireo 1
Yellow-throated Vireo 1
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 2
Blue Jay 4
Purple Martin 2
Barn Swallow 1
Carolina Wren 1
Gray Catbird 10
American Robin 2
American Goldfinch 4
Song Sparrow 1
Eastern Towhee 1
Baltimore Oriole 4
Red-winged Blackbird 30
Brown-headed Cowbird 3
Boat-tailed Grackle 5
Northern Waterthrush 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Cerulean Warbler 1
Northern Parula 1
Blackburnian Warbler 1
Yellow Warbler 1
Scarlet Tanager 3
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 5
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