Cloverdale Farm | Forsythe-Barnegat 5/2--Short-billed Dowitcher, Eastern Screech-Owl, Scarlet Tanager

Normally, I hate it when a non-birder, seeing my binoculars, wants to direct me to a bird she's seen. Usually, it turns out to be a big, charismatic bird I don't care much about--a Red-tailed Hawk, or egrets, or, if the -non-birder drives a pickup, an eagle. I don't know how many times I've had to tell someone that a Great Blue Heron wasn't a crane. So, this morning at Cloverdale Farm, when a walker approached me with the obvious intent of relaying some avian information, I inwardly groaned. "Here it comes," I said to myself. But what came was that she thought she'd seen a screech-owl sticking its head out of a box "in that pond" 

I thanked her and walked over to the pond. I haven't been to Cloverdale in quite a while and hadn't noticed the box, which is new, along with the clearing of a lot of vegetation from the area. The box looked pretty big to me, and being in the water, like it was for nesting Wood Ducks. But just because a box is meant for one species, doesn't mean another won't appropriate it--I'm looking at you House Wren.

In any event, no bird was sunning itself. I stood around and waited for a while, trying different angles, even walking up the side of the pond to look at the box from another direction, doing a bad imitation of screech-owl whinnies. Nothing.  

Then, just after I had determined there was no other way to look at the box and I was walking back to the parking lot, I looked one more time and there was an Eastern Screech-Owl with its head out of the box. The overhang of the box created a shadow, so I wasn't able to get great pictures. 

Photos are problematical anyhow. It's one thing to report an owl that you hear, but owl roosts are supposed to be kept on the down low. I consulted a friend of mine, and he told me just to list the bird without any more information. (It isn't flagged rare, so I don't have to elaborate on it). This way, dastardly photographers who lurk on eBird, looking for sightings, can't antagonize the bird. 

But you, gentle reader, you wouldn't rush off to bother the bird, would you?  Which is why I feel only slight discomfort adding the one, highly cropped photo of the owl to illustrate this entry. 

I was already feeling pretty good, since I had earlier seen my first Scarlet Tanager of the year, singing very high in the trees, flitting from pine to dead tree. I heard it first--why its song is described as a "robin with a cold" eludes me--and then managed to get eyes on it. A Scarlet Tanager is a bird I want to see. 

I left Cloverdale and drove down to the Barnegat section of Forsythe. I was looking for shorebirds, and found a large flock of Dunlin, molting into their breeding plumage, and among them were both yellowlegs and only one Short-billed Dowitcher. I was hoping for more--not dowitchers (I only need one), but new shorebirds.  

Back at Cloverdale, I had an amusing moment with bird songs. I've noticed lately that after using eBird, a splash screen comes up warning me that Merlin, their bird song app, is not 100% reliable--like duh, I figured that out when it "heard" a Prothonotary Warbler in my backyard. But I still use the app when there's a lot of singing going on, just to get a quick list of what's around. While I was using it today, it "suggested" Worm-eating Warbler as one of the songs it was "hearing." I was dubious. Merlin is notorious for not being able to separate Worm-eating Warbler from Chipping Sparrow from Pine Warbler. I was pretty certain it was picking up Chipping Sparrow, which were all over the place, but on the off-chance that it was correct, I played a recording of Worm-eating Warbler. Apparently, Chipping Sparrows can't tell the difference either because as soon as I played Worm-eating Warbler a chippie popped up on a branch, looking around for the interloper! I mean, if the birds can't tell the difference, what chance do we have?