Manasquan River WMA 5/3--Solitary Sandpiper, Great Crested Flycatcher, Veery, Blue-winged Warbler, Blue Grosbeak

Blue Grosbeak

It was a question of where I felt like going opposed to where I thought I should go, and last night, my friend Bob Auster made my decision for me asking me if I knew anything about a (very) rare bird at Island Beach. I didn't. I didn't even know about, since I don't follow social media. But I thought that everyone would be rushing to the park this morning, and the idea of dealing with hordes of birders, on narrow trails, of stuffed parking lots, and the ongoing one-way roads due to the seemingly endless trench project along the main road made me ill, so I went where I felt like going in the first place, Manasquan River WMA. (As it happened, I was wrong, apparently, about the frenzy I expected, but I'm still happy to have gone to Brick instead of Island Beach.)

The main reason to go to Manasquan River is to find Blue-winged Warbler, not an easy bird to find but usually reliable in that WMA. It took me a hell of a long time to finally track one down, but I eventually heard one buzzing away in the usual spot in the back field, and even briefly saw it. Another reliable bird there is Blue Grosbeak and I managed to find one of those too, at the top of a tree in the same back field. 

Chukar

The unusual bird there was Solitary Sandpiper, a patch bird for me. Despite the name, there isn't a lot of water in the Manasquan River WMA (the river is inaccessible), and the only little pond there was too deep to have a sandpiper feeding in it. There was a vernal pond in the middle of the back field that I trudged my way toward, but it didn't have a solitary either. I'd given up on the idea when I came to a spot that is usually very wet, which it was, just as I had completed my first circuit of the field, and there, picking in the mud, was the Solitary--which gave a call when I turned on my camera and flew away. Two FOY birds that I only heard were Great Crested Flycatcher, when I first arrived, and a Veery way in the back at almost the Ocean/Monmouth County line. 

The most amusing bird of the day I can't count. I was walking on the trail that goes to the parking lot when I saw a lump in the middle of it. My first thought was "groundhog" but binoculars revealed it to be a Chukar, no doubt a survivor of a release during the hunting season. I've seen Chukars there before, only they were headless, decapitated, I was told by hunters, by Great Horned Owls. It ain't an easy life being a game bird. 

38 species including the Chukar

Chukar  1     
Mourning Dove  2
Solitary Sandpiper  1     
Laughing Gull  2
Black Vulture  1
Turkey Vulture  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Downy Woodpecker  1     Heard
Northern Flicker  1     Heard
Great Crested Flycatcher  1     Heard
White-eyed Vireo  4
Blue Jay  1     Heard
Carolina Chickadee  3
Tufted Titmouse  2     Heard
Tree Swallow  4
White-breasted Nuthatch  1     Heard
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  2
House Wren  1     Heard
Carolina Wren  5     Heard
Gray Catbird  10
Brown Thrasher  1     Front field
Eastern Bluebird  1
Veery  1     Heard
Wood Thrush  5     Heard
American Robin  1     Heard
American Goldfinch  2     Heard
Field Sparrow  15
White-throated Sparrow  5
Song Sparrow  2
Eastern Towhee  4
Brown-headed Cowbird  3
Ovenbird  25     Heard
Blue-winged Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  25
Yellow Warbler  1     Heard
Prairie Warbler  5     Heard
Northern Cardinal  1     Heard
Blue Grosbeak  1