Barnegat Lighthouse SP 12/16--Black-headed Gull

The only thing I like about winter is the second chance I get at birds I missed earlier in the year. I didn't get up to Manasquan Inlet early in the year to check off Black-headed Gull, which seems to appear annually up there. I don't remember why I didn't go, but it probably had something to do with not enjoying standing around on a jetty in a cold wind. So this week, when I saw that one had been reported at Barnegat Lighthouse, I decided that I may as well get over there before the year runs out on me. Besides, it would be a new patch bird for the park. 

I have some friends who like nothing more than to stand in one spot and scan big flocks of gulls, looking for the oddity. But I don't. At least I knew where the gull had been spotted--in the relatively new Plover Pond back where there used to be only dunes. When I climbed over the embankment I was glad to see that there were only about a dozen or so Bonaparte Gulls in the pond. Since a Black-headed Gull looks very much like a Bonaparte's I knew it would probably be short work in either finding the bird or shrugging my shoulders. The little flock of Bonaparte's did not yield the desired bird. But there seem to be a few more of these little gulls scattered around the pond. I scoped each one and, as the proverb goes, what you are looking for will be in the last place you look, when I found a gull with a bicolored bill, I stopped searching. It was on the other side of the pond. I walked over and managed a few pictures. Then the Bonies from the other side of the pond flew over. When I looked up from reviewing my photos on the back of the camera, the Black-headed was gone. 20+ Bonaparte's and no Black-headed. It had flown to the west end of the pond--apparently it doesn't enjoy the company of its American cousins. 

And I found it by myself, which is always a satisfaction. I walked around the pond & out to the ocean, where I stepped up on the jetty, just to get an obligatory look at the Harlequin Ducks and Purple Sandpipers that are the Barnegat Lighthouse spécialités. I walked along the beach and scoped the ocean a few times, coming up with a decent number of duck species--not huge numbers, but enough to keep me interested. Just as I walked back to the pond area, I flushed a big flock of Snow Buntings. Climbing up onto the embankment that runs along the pond I looked again for the Black-headed and found it, this time across water, on the sand--again, all by itself. Very unsociable. 

I listed 26 species for my 3 hours there. Looking at the lists of other birders today, I'm way short of them both in number of species and, in many cases, the numbers of birds. But I don't walk to the end of the jetty anymore. Not worth risking my skull or my optics for a couple of more ducks. 

Brant  100
Canada Goose  50
Mallard  31
American Black Duck  3
Lesser Scaup  5     Plover pond
Harlequin Duck  7
Surf Scoter  2
Black Scoter  4
Long-tailed Duck  3
Bufflehead  40
Red-breasted Merganser  9
Black-bellied Plover  1
Dunlin  25
Purple Sandpiper  4
Bonaparte's Gull  25
Black-headed Gull  1     
Ring-billed Gull  2
Herring Gull  300
Great Black-backed Gull  7
Common Loon  6
Great Cormorant  1
Double-crested Cormorant  1
Great Blue Heron  1     Plover Pond
Snow Bunting  25
Song Sparrow  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1