Island Beach SP 4/10--Lesser Black-backed Gull, Little Blue Heron, Merlin, Brown Thrasher

Brown Thrasher

Merlin

My plan today was to walk as many of the bayside trails as I could at Island Beach, starting at Reed's Road and working my way south. I was fairly confident I'd find something new and the first bird I saw (not listed, that was a robin I heard when I got out of the car) was a Brown Thrasher singing atop a tree just off the main road. Great start. Reed's Road, of course, is the warbler hot spot, but I wasn't expecting any activity of that sort today--still a little early. Walking up the road I saw in a dead tree a bird I've been expecting to find all year, either at Whitesbog or the cranberry bogs on Dover Road but have missed--a Merlin. With the Peregrine Falcon earlier this month and the American Kestrels I've come across, that completed the falcon trifecta for the year unless a Gyrfalcon happens to show up. 

The next stop was a couple of miles down the road--the Tidal Pond Trail. I walked this trail more out of curiosity, since Steve told me that a new trail had been cut through the woods and came out on the boardwalk to the blind. That it goes into the woods now seems like it might be a productive warbler trail come a couple of weeks from now. Today it was just the usual winter birds hanging on. As to why the park workers had made a new trail, I suspected it was because the original trail was eroding away into Barnegat Bay and finding this sign at the end of the secondary trail to the bay confirmed it. 

Road construction has been going on at the park seemingly forever--some kind of new sewer system--and it has blocked off the parking lot at A15, so I wasn't able to walk down that trail or look in the little marsh there where sometimes you can find an interesting rail or shorebird. The construction stops just before the Nature Center which is across the street from the Johnny Allen Cove Trail and that where I went next. I had a slim hope of finding the Clay-colored Sparrow that was seen there yesterday, but as Steve said, with all that construction at the foot of the trail, it wasn't likely to stick around. I suppose the most notable birds in the marsh and the bay were a small flock of Green-winged Teals, a dozen Glossy Ibises that flew in and were immediately invisible in the high vegetation of the marsh, and two American Oystercatchers flying by. 

I was saving the best for the last--Spizzle Creek--where I hoped White Ibis might be. A birder I met on the Johnny Allen trail had just come from there and had 8 of them in the marsh.  Not that they're really that rare anymore, but the novelty hasn't completely worn off. Unfortunately, when I walking back on the cove trail I saw a lot of white birds suddenly take flight across the marsh that separates the two trail and I had a sinking feeling that some of those white birds were ibises. 

Little Blue Heron

Apparently, I was right, because the marshes were devoid of ibises. While I was walking around, I got a text from Steve who'd been informed that I was in the park. He was heading my way. I told him that, of course, the birds I was looking for--the ibises and Little Blue Heron--where nowhere in sight. He texted back that the Little Blues might be hunkered down and just as I was reading his message, one flew out of the reeds, squawked, and landed at the edge of the water. I found another when I backtracked toward the blind. Winter ducks are getting thin in the water, but when Steve & I met up, he did pick out four Greater Scaup hens nestled in with a larger flock of Buffleheads. 

Lesser Black-backed Gulls

Steve asked me if I still need Lesser Black-backed Gull for the year--last month while I was at Barnegat Light I'd sent him a picture of a candidate for the species which he put the gentle kibosh on. He suggested that we look on the beach on the other side of the A20 parking lot after we left Spizzle. We climbed over the dune and before I could begin to scan, he said, "There's two." Amazing. He looked north and thought there were more on sand spit so we walked up a ways and, without looking too hard came up with 7. There are probably more but: You Only Need One. Incidental to the search but good for the day list, were Sanderlings, Red-throated Loon, and a couple of plunge-diving Northern Gannet, always entertaining to watch. 

Four the 4 trails and the brief walk along the ocean I had 51 species:

Species First Sighting                                                                    
Brant    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Canada Goose    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Mallard    Reed’s Road
American Black Duck    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Green-winged Teal    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Greater Scaup    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Bufflehead    Reed’s Road
Red-breasted Merganser    Reed’s Road
Mourning Dove    Reed’s Road
American Oystercatcher    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Black-bellied Plover    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Greater Yellowlegs    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Sanderling    A20
Laughing Gull    Reed’s Road
American Herring Gull    Reed’s Road
Great Black-backed Gull    A20
Lesser Black-backed Gull    A20
Forster's Tern    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Red-throated Loon    A20
Common Loon    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Northern Gannet    A20
Double-crested Cormorant    Reed’s Road
Glossy Ibis    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Little Blue Heron    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Tricolored Heron    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Snowy Egret    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Great Egret    Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Osprey    Tidal Pond Trail
Belted Kingfisher    Tidal Pond Trail
Northern Flicker    Reed’s Road
Merlin    Reed’s Road
Eastern Phoebe    Tidal Pond Trail
Fish Crow    Reed’s Road
Carolina Chickadee    Tidal Pond Trail
White-breasted Nuthatch    Reed’s Road
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Carolina Wren    Reed’s Road
Brown Thrasher    Reed’s Road
Hermit Thrush    Reed’s Road
American Robin    Reed’s Road
House Finch    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Dark-eyed Junco    Tidal Pond Trail
Song Sparrow    Reed’s Road
Swamp Sparrow    Reed’s Road
Eastern Towhee    Reed’s Road
Red-winged Blackbird    Reed’s Road
Common Grackle    Reed’s Road
Boat-tailed Grackle    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Palm Warbler    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Yellow-rumped Warbler    Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Northern Cardinal    Reed’s Road