Kicking Off the Year at Sandy Hook--Western Tanager

"As is my custom, I drove up to Sandy Hook this morning to "Kick Off the Year List" with Scott, Linda, Carole, et al, and about 29 other birders, though I had to go solo this time as Shari's knee hasn't recovered enough for walking through sand." Those are the words I wrote last year on New Year's Day and they apply today as well as Shari recovers from her second knee replacement. Last year my first bird of the year was a pre-dawn American Crow cawing somewhere in the neighborhood, today it was Canada Geese flying overhead. The crows came a little later at dawn, along with mockingbird, turkey, nuthatch, Carolina Wren and Song Sparrow. 

Even the great rarity was the same as last year--a bright Western Tanager which was around the old visitor's center on the southern part of the hook.  But that's where the similarity ends. It was not as easy to see this tanager as last year's because the weather conditions were the opposite--where it was calm and relatively warm last year, it was blowing up a gale this year. Since birds are smarter than we are, the tanager made the wise decision to stay out of the wind, meaning it was ensconced deep in the leaf litter beneath some cedars, where last year it was happily displaying high in the trees around the observation deck. It isn't easy to get 20+ people on a bird that doesn't want to be seen, so we spent a lot of time circling the little grove of trees where it has been hanging out for the last week or so. I don't know if everyone managed a look--I left after the group returned to the spot--but I had some okay but non-photographable looks when it was about a foot off the ground. I can't say the same for the Orange-crowned Warbler that was in the area, or for the Red-necked Grebe that was in the ocean off North Beach. I saw a blur of a bird jump down from a high cedar and decided that wasn't a good enough look to list as Orange-crowned, and the Red-necked Grebe was just impossible for me to see as it continually dived just as I looked in someone's scope. After a while, with the 30-mph wind watering my eyes and shaking my scope I ran the fun test, which came up negative, so I shouldered my scope and turned back. I think the only reason I hung at the beach as long as I did was because the wind was mostly at our backs and walking back to the parking lot meant facing it full force. 

Usually on field trips I hang in until the end, but today, with Shari at home and the prospect of standing on a beach again viewing ducks at a distance unappealing, I left around 1:30. So my list for Sandy Hook is short, but I'm happy with the tanager and to have all 3 scoters on the list first day. I also enjoyed the gannet show. 

Northern Mockingbird

33 species

Brant  100
Canada Goose  10
American Black Duck  3
Greater Scaup  1
Common Eider  1
Surf Scoter  4
White-winged Scoter  1
Black Scoter  45
Long-tailed Duck  8
Bufflehead  10
Red-breasted Merganser  5
Sanderling  35
American Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  10
Horned Grebe  1
Red-throated Loon  2
Common Loon  1
Northern Gannet  25
Great Cormorant  8
Double-crested Cormorant  1
Great Blue Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Northern Harrier  1
Bald Eagle  1
Downy Woodpecker  1
Common Raven  2
Northern Mockingbird  1
House Finch  2
American Goldfinch  1
Snow Bunting  40
Song Sparrow  2
Yellow-rumped Warbler  20
Western Tanager  1