July Recap--A Meager 7 Year Birds

Tricolored Heron, Manahawkin WMA

I was happy to see that a couple of birders went to Whitesbog yesterday afternoon and re-found the Little Blue Heron I reported in the morning, because I hate to report a rarity without any photographic or audio back-up, even if the rarity is not so rare. On one of the lists the birder put in his comments, "Great find by Larry Z." While I appreciate the compliment, it wasn't a such a great discovery. 

A birder standing on a windswept beach in January, going through a huge flock of gulls and pulling out a Glaucous Gull, that's a good find. Identifying a California Gull--that's a great find. Or a birder standing on a dike at Brig in summer, fighting off the greenhead flies, scanning thousands of sandpipers to find a few Western Sandpipers is a good find. Finding a Red-necked Stint or Curlew Sandpiper in the ever-shifting flock--that's a great find. Or a birder on a pelagic spotting an incredibly rare Bermuda Petrel--that's a great find. Or a birder who sees a relatively nondescript flycatcher and realizes that it's a Western Flycatcher in New Jersey--that's a great find.  Those birders have patience and skill in abundance, the former of which I lack completely, the latter of which I have a modicum. So, me coming across a slightly out-of-range bird that I've seen hundreds of times--to paraphrase Bob Dylan, "I just happened to be there, that's all." 

Greater Scaup, Island Beach

Despite only adding 7 birds to the year list, some of those birds were choice, especially yesterday's Broad-winged Hawk, and the Sedge Wren at Laurel Run Park. The other 5 new birds for the year came were the result of two trips to Brig--all shorebirds except for a Least Bittern at the Gull Pond. In the "rare but not new" category there was an out of season Greater Scaup at the Barnegat Inlet, a couple of Red-shouldered Hawks in Burlco & Ocean, and Grasshopper Sparrows at Laurel Run which peculiarly get flagged as rare in the summer. 

For the month I tracked down 135 species, mostly bouncing around my close-by spots--Whitesbog, Reeves Bogs, Double Trouble, the cranberry bogs in South Toms River, Colliers Mills and Island Beach. 

Counties birded: Atlantic, Burlington, Ocean

Species              First Sighting
Canada Goose   Wells Mills Park
Mute Swan   Cedar Run Dock Rd.
Wood Duck   Whitesbog
Mallard   Cranberry Bogs
American Black Duck   Brig
Greater Scaup   Island Beach SP
Black Scoter   Island Beach SP
Wild Turkey   35 Sunset Rd
Rock Pigeon   South Toms River
Mourning Dove   Whitesbog
Yellow-billed Cuckoo   Whitesbog
Eastern Whip-poor-will   35 Sunset Rd
Ruby-throated Hummingbird   35 Sunset Rd
Clapper Rail   Great Bay Blvd
Virginia Rail   Whitesbog
American Avocet   Brig
American Oystercatcher   Island Beach SP
Black-bellied Plover   Brig
Killdeer   Whitesbog
Semipalmated Plover   Brig
Piping Plover   Island Beach SP
Whimbrel   Brig
Short-billed Dowitcher   Great Bay Blvd
Long-billed Dowitcher   Brig
Spotted Sandpiper   Whitesbog
Solitary Sandpiper   Franklin Parker Preserve
Lesser Yellowlegs   Great Bay Blvd
Willet   Island Beach SP
Greater Yellowlegs   Great Bay Blvd
Ruddy Turnstone   Island Beach SP
Stilt Sandpiper   Brig
Sanderling   Island Beach SP
Least Sandpiper   Whitesbog
Pectoral Sandpiper   Brig
Western Sandpiper   Brig
Semipalmated Sandpiper   Brig
Laughing Gull   Cloverdale Farm
Ring-billed Gull   Brig
Herring Gull   Island Beach SP
Great Black-backed Gull   Island Beach SP
Black Skimmer   Great Bay Blvd
Least Tern   Island Beach SP
Gull-billed Tern   Brig
Forster's Tern   Island Beach SP
Common Tern   Island Beach SP
Royal Tern   Island Beach SP
Common Loon   Island Beach SP
Double-crested Cormorant   Cranberry Bogs
Brown Pelican   Great Bay Blvd
Least Bittern   Brig
Yellow-crowned Night Heron   Great Bay Blvd
Black-crowned Night Heron   Great Bay Blvd
Little Blue Heron   Brig
Tricolored Heron   Cattus Island County Park
Snowy Egret   Great Bay Blvd
Green Heron   Whitesbog
Great Egret   Island Beach SP
Great Blue Heron   Cloverdale Farm
Glossy Ibis   Island Beach SP
Black Vulture   Jumping Brook Preserve
Turkey Vulture   Whitesbog
Osprey   Cloverdale Farm
Cooper's Hawk   Cranberry Bogs
Bald Eagle   Brig
Red-shouldered Hawk   Reeves Bogs
Broad-winged Hawk   Whitesbog
Red-tailed Hawk   Cranberry Bogs
Belted Kingfisher   Reeves Bogs
Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-bellied Woodpecker   Whitesbog
Downy Woodpecker   Wells Mills Park
Hairy Woodpecker   Reeves Bogs
Northern Flicker   Whitesbog
Peregrine Falcon   Brig
Eastern Wood-Pewee   Whitesbog
Willow Flycatcher   Island Beach SP
Eastern Phoebe   Whitesbog
Great Crested Flycatcher   Whitesbog
Eastern Kingbird   Whitesbog
White-eyed Vireo   Wells Mills Park
Warbling Vireo   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-eyed Vireo   Wells Mills Park
Blue Jay   35 Sunset Rd
American Crow   35 Sunset Rd
Fish Crow   Whitesbog
Common Raven   Colliers Mills WMA
Carolina Chickadee   Whitesbog
Tufted Titmouse   Cloverdale Farm
Bank Swallow   Brig
Tree Swallow   Whitesbog
Purple Martin   Cedar Run Dock Rd.
Northern Rough-winged Swallow   Reeves Bogs
Barn Swallow   Whitesbog
White-breasted Nuthatch   Whitesbog
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher   Whitesbog
House Wren   35 Sunset Rd
Sedge Wren   Laurel Run Park
Marsh Wren   Great Bay Blvd
Carolina Wren   35 Sunset Rd
European Starling   Whitesbog
Gray Catbird   Whitesbog
Brown Thrasher   Cloverdale Farm
Northern Mockingbird   Whitesbog
Eastern Bluebird   Wells Mills Park
Veery   Wells Mills Park
Wood Thrush   Whitesbog
American Robin   Whitesbog
Cedar Waxwing   Whitesbog
House Sparrow   Cedar Run Dock Rd.
House Finch   35 Sunset Rd
American Goldfinch   Whitesbog
Grasshopper Sparrow   Laurel Run Park
Chipping Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd
Field Sparrow   Cranberry Bogs
Seaside Sparrow   Island Beach SP
Saltmarsh Sparrow   Great Bay Blvd
Song Sparrow   Whitesbog
Swamp Sparrow   Whitesbog
Eastern Towhee   Whitesbog
Yellow-breasted Chat   Brig
Orchard Oriole   Cranberry Bogs
Red-winged Blackbird   Whitesbog
Brown-headed Cowbird   Cloverdale Farm
Common Grackle   Whitesbog
Boat-tailed Grackle   Island Beach SP
Ovenbird   Whitesbog
Black-and-white Warbler   Whitesbog
Common Yellowthroat   Whitesbog
Yellow Warbler   Island Beach SP
Pine Warbler   Whitesbog
Prairie Warbler   Whitesbog
Scarlet Tanager   Jumping Brook Preserve
Northern Cardinal   35 Sunset Rd
Blue Grosbeak   Cloverdale Farm
Indigo Bunting   Colliers Mills WMA

Royal Terns, Island Beach

Whitesbog 7/30--Broad-winged Hawk

I saw this bird at 8:22 this morning on a path that parallels the entrance road to Whitesbog. I didn't find out that I had a year bird until 4:17 this afternoon when one of my Burlco friends, looking at my eBird list, pointed out in a message that it wasn't the Cooper's Hawk I assumed it was, but rather, a Broad-winged Hawk. 

The bird was flying through the woods along the path and the only picture I got was the one above. It didn't look quite right for a Coop to me (I had seen one earlier mobbed by crows on the runway near Ditch Meadow) but Broad-winged Hawk is flagged as rare, and, without being able to the band on the tail or the underwings, I defaulted to the "infrequent" bird rather than the rarity.  All this is a roundabout way of saying that I'm pretty lousy when it comes to hawks that I only see once in a while. Every birder misidentifies birds, but it is embarrassing when you're the birder doing the misidentifying. It also leads me to wonder what other rarities I've missed along the way.

But that capped off a good morning at Whitesbog--not as good as I would hope at this time of year, when in the past the bogs would have started to be drawn down. This year, like last year, it doesn't look as if the farmer can afford to do the birding community the favor of turning the bogs to mud---a combination of little rain this summer and beavers damming up the source of a lot of his water has made the water in the bogs too precious to just drain away down Cranberry Run. We might get lucky later in the month if he has to pump out one of the bogs, but as of now, any mud I'm seeing is due to evaporation. So far this summer only the most common shorebirds have been seen there--Least Sandpaper, Spotted Sandpiper, Solitary Sandpiper, Killdeer, though I did have a Semipalmated Plover fly overhead around Union Pond. 

The two birds that I got excited about before the hawk were a Virginia Rail calling from a wetlands across from the Upper Bog (it's the first Virginia Rail I've had on the Burlco side of Whitesbog) and an immature Little Blue Heron that I saw standing in a Union Pond then watched fly over the road, circle the Middle Bog and then fly back over Union and...gone. Another half mile up the road in Ocean County and LBHE would just be flagged as infrequent--in Burlco it's "rare." 

For the morning, 44 species.

Canada Goose  11
Wood Duck  3
Mallard  7
Mourning Dove  2
Virginia Rail  1     Kek kek kek across from Upper Bog
Semipalmated Plover  1
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Least Sandpiper  4
Little Blue Heron  1     
Green Heron  3
Cooper's Hawk  1     Chased by crows on landing strip
Broad-winged Hawk  1     
Downy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  2
Eastern Wood-Pewee  5
Eastern Phoebe  2
Great Crested Flycatcher  2
Eastern Kingbird  15
White-eyed Vireo  2
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  9
Fish Crow  2
Carolina Chickadee  3
Tufted Titmouse  3
Tree Swallow  60
Purple Martin  10
Barn Swallow  6
White-breasted Nuthatch  2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  4
House Wren  1
Carolina Wren  2
European Starling  3
Gray Catbird  20
Eastern Bluebird  1
American Robin  6
American Goldfinch  2
Chipping Sparrow  4
Song Sparrow  10
Swamp Sparrow  1
Eastern Towhee  15
Orchard Oriole  1     Corner of Triangle Field
Red-winged Blackbird  15
Common Yellowthroat  8
Prairie Warbler  1

Laurel Run Park 7/24--Sedge Wren

Sedge Wren

I've heard more Sedge Wrens than I've seen and the ones I've seen have been distant, brief, unphotographed looks, so, when the one reported at Laurel Run Park in Burlco stuck around for a third day, I got myself out there early this morning. The bird was being seen in the northwest corner of the park--technically just outside the park on the adjoining farm property and I walked directly there. I heard its bubbly song immediately upon getting in the vicinity. Interestingly, the Merlin app identified it as a Carolina Wren, because I suppose, that's the closest it could get with a bird in the New Jersey "pack" I have loaded onto it (and another example of why to heed Cornell's warning not to take what it returns as gospel). I saw the bird naked eye, then had a bit of a hard time finding it in my bins until I realized I was looking too far out into the field. The bird was singing in a little bush about 15 feet away from me. 

Grasshopper Sparrow on the site of a future soccer field

Laurel Run is one of the few areas of grassland extant around here, the place to go for Grasshopper Sparrow if you can't get onto the Lakehurst base, and home to many grassland loving birds like Indigo Bunting, Blue Grosbeak, and the occasional Dickcissel, so naturally, there are plans to mow it all down and create lawns and soccer fields. Something there is about a suburban municipality that can't stand to see "unused" land and feels compelled to turn it into an "active" recreational area rather than the passive activity of watching nature take its course. And, as Shari pointed out to me, most of the time lawns and soccer fields go unused too--in the winter, in the rain, at night--while wildlife uses the grasslands all the time 24/7, 365. Habitat loss is a major factor in decreasing bird populations, and I can't understand the rationale of developing land for housing and industry (though not really), but destroying habitat for lawns, which are green deserts? It's just wrong and worse, any argument you make to someone who wants to "develop" a property will sound like Klingon to them. 

I circled the one mile loop 3 times this morning. This is what I found:

24 species
Canada Goose  3
Mourning Dove  15
Green Heron  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  1
Willow Flycatcher  1     Fitz-bew
Blue Jay  2
Sedge Wren  1     
Carolina Wren  2
European Starling  30
Northern Mockingbird  1
American Robin  3
House Finch  1
American Goldfinch  2
Grasshopper Sparrow  4     Resident here
Chipping Sparrow  4
Field Sparrow  6
Song Sparrow  1
Red-winged Blackbird  150
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Common Grackle  1
Northern Cardinal  1
Blue Grosbeak  3
Indigo Bunting  1

Brig 7/13--Whimbrel, Stilt Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Least Bittern

Finally, some new year birds, and a lesson on the unreliability of weather reports. Shari & I went on Scott's Brig trip this morning, driving down the parkway in a teeming downpour. The forecast called for "light rain" for most of the day, but the windshield wipers going full speed seemed to belie that. However, when got off the highway, the rain did turn to drizzle. At Wawa, the rain had stopped. 10 minutes later, in the parking lot it was raining yet again. 

But then it stopped. And instead of an annoying drizzle, we had cloudy, breezy weather, giving way to sunny, humid conditions. And there were lots of shorebirds to sort through--frankly, too many for my liking, because it is hard to sift through an ever-shuffling flock of  peeps, looking for the outliers. Some in our group are much better at it and way more patient than I am. It thrilled me to see, at the Gull Pond, my first Least Bittern of the year flying over the phragmites, coming from who knows where and disappearing a little farther on. Whimbrels, which I missed while we were in Mexico, were the next year birds and they're pretty obvious. Even the Pectoral Sandpipers on the east dike among the thousand or so Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Greater & Lesser Yellowlegs and Short-billed Dowitchers, were easy to see once someone with sharper eyes found them in the flock. But the Stilt Sandpipers were frustrating--their position in the flock seemed to change whimsically and I only ever got a good look at one--until we got to the dogleg where the light was lousy but where six of them could be easily seen feeding like (pick your simile) an oil derrick or like the "perpetual motion" drinky bird of my youth. I know the experts in the group were looking & hoping for a stint, but my attitude was, even if you find one, 40 yards out, the chances of me seeing are small. Some people saw Western Sandpipers among the peeps, but I didn't even bother to try to find them--unless I'm right on top of one, I have no chance. 

American Avocet

The coolest bird we saw today was not a year bird, but a rarity, most of the time, in NJ--American Avocet, which we saw early in the year in Bombay Hook where they're common. No one has ever been able to explain to me why Brig, which is farther south than Bombay Hook to the west, gets only the occasional avocet, while at Bombay Hook you find huge flocks. The habitats appear to be exactly the same yet today two avocets, widely separated, were the highlight for me, while down in the Delaware they're expected.

The group, after lunch, was going to do a second loop to find a Black-necked Stilt (another Delaware specialty) but Shari had a commitment for later in the day, so we were the sacrificial birders. Still, without much walking or exploring the upland portion of the refuge, we managed 56 species:

Canada Goose  200
Mute Swan  100
Mallard  5
Mourning Dove  1     Heard
Clapper Rail  2
American Avocet  2     
American Oystercatcher  2
Black-bellied Plover  6
Killdeer  2
Whimbrel  15
Short-billed Dowitcher  1000
Lesser Yellowlegs  50
Willet  4
Greater Yellowlegs  100
Stilt Sandpiper  7
Least Sandpiper  100
Pectoral Sandpiper  2
Semipalmated Sandpiper  500
Laughing Gull  80
Herring Gull  10
Great Black-backed Gull  1
Black Skimmer  10
Least Tern  2
Gull-billed Tern  4
Forster's Tern  12
Double-crested Cormorant  100
Least Bittern  1     Gull pond
Yellow-crowned Night Heron  1
Black-crowned Night Heron  4
Snowy Egret  20
Great Egret  25
Great Blue Heron  8
Glossy Ibis  40
Osprey  19
Bald Eagle  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  1   Heard
Eastern Kingbird  2
Blue Jay  1     Heard
American Crow  2
Tufted Titmouse  1
Bank Swallow  3
Tree Swallow  10
Purple Martin  20
Barn Swallow  3
Marsh Wren  6
Carolina Wren  1     Heard
European Starling  15
Gray Catbird  1
House Finch  1
American Goldfinch  3
Chipping Sparrow  1     Heard
Field Sparrow  1     Heard
Seaside Sparrow  6
Song Sparrow  1     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  25

Blue Grosbeak  1