Barnegat Lighthouse SP 11/25

Eastern Meadowlark

 In an early Peterson guide I used to have, long since fallen to pieces and discarded, I remember being struck by a phrase in his introduction, discussing habitat and the kinds of birds one should expect to find in them: "A meadowlark needs a meadow." It seemed axiomatic at the time, but even Homer nods, as, over the years I have compiled a little list in my head of all the spots I have seen meadowlarks that were not meadows, including the marsh at the Bridge to Nowhere, Rome Pond at Whitesbog, an airport runway, and today, in the big sandy area next to the concrete walkway at Barnegat Lighthouse SP. I was walking back toward the lighthouse when I saw to my left a large bird fly off into a little bit of scrub. It's outer white tail feathers immediately told me what it was, but I was certainly surprised, not having that bird on my expected list for the day. Yet, there it was, picking at the little bush it had flown to. I suppose with no bugs around whatever seeds or berries it could find in that wasteland would have to suffice for a diet. It wasn't particularly shy, so I was able to get some decent pictures of it. 

Blue-headed Vireo

It was a day of little discoveries. Earlier I stopped off at Cedar Bonnet Island, only because the traffic on the bridge to LBI was at a standstill, so I figured I'd walk around the refuge and let it ease up. I'm glad I did, because though the birdage wasn't heavy, as I was walking out on the entrance path I came across what I mistook for a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which would be "infrequent" according to eBird, but instead it turned out to be a Blue-headed Vireo, which, for this time of year, is "rare." The spectacles fooled me initially, but I was able to get one quick photo and my suspicion that the bird was too big and too inactive for a kinglet was confirmed. 

Back at Barnegat Lighthouse, I climbed the hill to overlook the pool and saw a big flock of American Oystercatchers and, just like at Holgate, where there are a lot of oystercatchers in winter there is a good

Marbled Godwit

chance of finding a Marbled Godwit mixed in among them. This was a much better look than I had at Holgate last month, the birds being only about a hundred yards away instead of half a mile. Also within that big scooped out area was a large flock of Snow Buntings swirling around. I looked in vain for a Lapland Longspur. Snow Buntings are a restless species, seemingly constantly in motion, but at one point, while I was scanning the ocean at the beach, the flock landed behind me and was stationery long enough for me to count up to 73. 

What I really wanted from the ocean was White-winged Scoter, which I hadn't seen January and hadn't seen in the county yet this year.  I was hopeful that the ocean would be calm, since the inlet seem lake-like, but the seas were rough, and it made finding the ducks a challenge, though I did tally Common Eiders and Harlequin Ducks around the old, submerged jetty, but the scoters I was hoping for were not swimming. Instead, there were big flocks of Black Scoters flying along the horizon and finally, after my patience was just about spend, a couple of big ducks with white wings shot past me going south, followed a few minutes later by another 9 more. So, I had my target and few more goodies and trudged back to the parking lot, stopping along the jetty until I got a couple of Ipswich Savannah Sparrows to round out the list. Oh yes, one Purple Sandpiper on the north jetty, viewed with the scope, so I got all the Barney specialties.

Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich)

My Barnegat Light list: 

31 species (+1 other taxa)
Brant  75
Canada Goose  4
Mallard  15
American Black Duck  10
Common Eider  7
Harlequin Duck  6
White-winged Scoter  11
Black Scoter  130
scoter sp.  25
American Oystercatcher  33
Black-bellied Plover  1
Marbled Godwit  1
Ruddy Turnstone  10
Dunlin  5
Purple Sandpiper  1
Bonaparte's Gull  2
American Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  30
Horned Grebe  1
Red-throated Loon  25
Common Loon  4
Northern Gannet  50
Double-crested Cormorant  2
Northern Flicker  1
Blue Jay  1     Heard
Common Raven  2     Two large croaking corvids over the pool
Carolina Wren  1
Northern Mockingbird  1
House Sparrow  5
Snow Bunting  73
Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich)  2
Eastern Meadowlark  1

Lake of the Lilies 11/19--Eurasian Wigeon

Eurasian Wigeon with American Coots, American Wigeons and Mute Swan

It was raining this morning so I couldn't go for my birding walk; instead, I went to Costco in Brick and since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to go to Lake of the Lillies in Point Pleasant Beach, despite the cold rain. There has been a Eurasian Wigeon there for more than a week and this seemed like a good time to try to find it. When I first heard about it, last week, I had just gotten back from a place not too far away and I wasn't about to make a special trip for this oxymoronic common rarity. I assumed I had one ticked off for the year. However, checking my year list, I didn't. Still, I assumed it would stick around. It has been my experience that once a duck, swan, or goose finds its happy place, there is no reason for it to leave. The challenge would be in finding the oddball in the flocks of swans, wigeons, Gadwalls, Ruddy Ducks, coots, gulls and so forth in the 12 acres of water the lake encompasses.  I parked at the "L" in the NW corner of the lake where there was a big flock of Ruddy Ducks, walked to the edge of the water and immediately flushed two Wilson's Snipes from the reeds.  I already felt like I was in the "win" column since snipes were a patch bird for me. Looking out through the murk and the needles of rain, I could see that I was going to need my scope. With it, I scanned through the flock of ruddies, found a few Gadwalls, Mallards, and then more and more American Wigeons appeared, along with coots and big, lumbering swans, which I suspected might be blocking my view of the target bird. I finally found our Eurasian visitor--brick red head, gray body--all the way on the south side of the lake. I briefly thought about driving over to that side but saw that the angle would be no good as it would be blocked by vegetation. I took out my camera and, zoomed it up to maximum, and took pictures of the general vicinity in which I'd found the bird. The photo above is the best of a poor batch. Fortunately, all this only took me 15 minutes, as the rain at the shore was becoming more or less horizontal. Happy is the man who finds his target bird along with a couple of snipes. 

The quarter-hour list:

13 species
Mute Swan  50
Gadwall  5
Eurasian Wigeon  1     
American Wigeon  50
Mallard  10
Hooded Merganser  1
Ruddy Duck  75
American Coot  60
Wilson's Snipe  2     
Ring-billed Gull  5
American Herring Gull  25
Great Black-backed Gull  20
Great Blue Heron  1

Wild Turkey Fun Fact

 I have to start examining my lawn more carefully. According to an article in the latest Audubon Magazine, the poop of a tom turkey is J-shaped, while that of a hen turkey is more of a spiral. I asked my informant about that this morning, and he confirmed that it was true and was, in fact, one of the ways he used to track turkeys back in his hunting days. We started to speculate as to why males and females would extrude different shapes but quickly decided that it was subject we didn't want to pursue.

Tom turkey in our backyard.

Double Trouble SP 11/6--Vesper Sparrow

The sandy trails around the back bogs at Double Trouble are often a good place for sparrows in the fall--they pick at the seeds that fall from the overhanging vegetation. Today though, it was pretty quiet there, as were the reservoir and the two now overgrown bogs. It wasn't until I was halfway down the middle path that I saw a couple of sparrows ahead. The glare was intense, so I was at a disadvantage, but with my bins I could tell that one was another Song Sparrow, but the other was "interesting." You can almost never get very close to feeding sparrows, so I crept up a few steps and took a few pictures of the duo for comparison later, and then a few pictures of the interesting sparrow solo. I could tell that it had a big eye ring--like a whitewall tire, and when eventually it flew into the bog, I saw a flash of white outer tail feathers. I had a feeling that it was a Vesper Sparrow, (eye ring, white outer tail feathers) but not having seen one in a couple of years, I waited until I got home and could blow up my photos on the computer. And yes: Year Bird, Patch Bird.  

With Song Sparrow

Having fulfilled the "one cool bird a day" requirement, I didn't mind that the rest of the list was pretty pedestrian--after all, I was walking. 

The sparse list:

21 species
Canada Goose  15
American Black Duck  2
Bald Eagle  2     Immatures on power line towers seen from Mill Pond
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  2
Fish Crow  26     Flyover Sweetwater Bogs
Common Raven  1     Croaking flyover
Carolina Chickadee  3
Golden-crowned Kinglet  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1
Winter Wren  1
Eastern Bluebird  2
American Robin  2
House Finch  2
American Goldfinch  3
White-throated Sparrow  6
Vesper Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  5
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1

Red-headed Woodpecker Behavior

Red-headed Woodpecker

You learn something new every day. Most of it is not worth knowing. This is:

I was at Colliers Mills this morning, and as I do almost every time I go, I headed first to the woods north of Success Road to look for Red-headed Woodpeckers. They aren't hard to find, usually, though sometimes I have to cheat and play a recording of their "queer!" cry. Today, though, I was just standing at the edge of the woods when I heard a pecking above me and there was a beautiful adult (they breed there so sometimes you get a motley juvenile) on the side of a thin, dead tree. Its head was lit up brilliantly by the rising sun. And when I took my camera off my shoulder and it slid around out of sight, I realized I had to add to the Laws of Birding:

    #7 No matter where you stand, the woodpecker is always on the other side of the tree.

The woodpecker played hide and seek with me for a few minutes and then came around to where I could see the majority of its body and in its beak was an acorn. Where did that come from? It could only be a cache. I didn't know that Red-headed Woodpeckers store food like Acorn Woodpeckers but looking it up I found that they do so and more elaborately and with more varied foods than the western species. 

Red-headed Woodpeckers are not social like Acorn Woodpeckers. They defend their cache vigorously and instead of having an open granary like Acorns Woodpeckers, they stuff little bits of wood in the hole where they've wedged the acorn (or other tree nut, or even an insect) in order to hide it. I remember out west seeing trees and even utility poles, stuffed with hundreds of acorns. The cover up with bits of wood explains why I've never seen a similar sight at Colliers Mills all the years I've been going there. Also, since it is not a family enterprise as it is with Acorn Woodpeckers, the behavior is much less obvious. Granted, I'm not the most observant naturalist, but this is the first time in 14 years of going to Colliers Mills that I've ever seen this species with food in its beak. Pretty cool, at least it seems to me. 

Red-tailed Hawk

This was my second day in a row at Colliers Mills. Yesterday was one of the rare days that I missed the Red-headed Woodpecker, but then, I didn't look until late in the morning. I spent a lot of time the last two days scoping the wetlands of Borden's Mill Branch, which is a good spot for shorebirds. Scott had told me that he'd had a Long-billed Dowitcher there and since I've never had an LBDO at Colliers, I wanted to add it to my patch list. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it over the two days, but I did get Pectoral Sandpipers (rare for the date), lots of Killdeers, and both yellowlegs, as well as today, a big flock of Rusty Blackbirds feeding on the mudflats. When everything got up and flew off, I looked around and saw a big lump in a leafless tree which resolved itself into a Red-tailed Hawk. That's explains it.

I've also been flushing up can't count 'em Ring-necked Pheasants there. I don't like to anthropomorphize, but I feel bad for them. They look perplexed standing on the path near the Police Shooting Range--bred to be shot and yet somehow still here.

34 species
Canada Goose  8
Wood Duck  7
Green-winged Teal  2     Borden’s Mill Branch wetlands
Ring-necked Pheasant  2      Hens
Killdeer  25
Lesser Yellowlegs  1
Greater Yellowlegs  2
Pectoral Sandpiper  2     
Turkey Vulture  4
Red-tailed Hawk  2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker  1     East side of Colliers Mill Lake
Red-headed Woodpecker  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  8
Blue Jay  10
American Crow  2
Carolina Chickadee  3
Tufted Titmouse  1
Golden-crowned Kinglet  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  2
Carolina Wren  2
European Starling  25
Eastern Bluebird  6
Hermit Thrush  1
American Robin  100
House Finch  5
American Goldfinch  2
Dark-eyed Junco  10
White-throated Sparrow  1
Savannah Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  8
Red-winged Blackbird  12
Rusty Blackbird  24     Exact count of those on mudflats

Yellow-rumped Warbler   15

Northern Cardinal   1

Ring-necked Pheasants--"They can't see us here!"

Whitesbog 11/3--Purple Finch

Because it looked like the rain was coming in from the south and east, I went over to Whitesbog this morning hoping to avoid the green on the radar and walk in the light blue. It started to drizzle as soon as I got there but the rain never really became more than an annoyance, and I was rewarded with some infrequently recorded birds like the duo of Rusty Blackbirds I saw at the back of Union Pond through the raindrops on my bins. 

I was slightly surprised to find a small flock of Pectoral Sandpipers still lingering on Union Pond alongside a little conclave of Killdeer, but sparrows were the family of the day with large numbers of White-throated Sparrows, along with Swamp, Song, Savannah, and Dark-eyed Juncos. It was in the village that I got my first year-bird of the month. I was looking into the brush across from the Garden Bog which was full of the above sparrows. I started Merlin to see if any of the flitting birds was anything different from what I was seeing and heard a ticking sound above me--just as I was saying to myself that that sounds interesting, Purple Finch popped up on the app. The proverbial "calling flyover." It seems to me it used to be easier to find Purple Finch around here--it is, after all the native finch unlike its House Finch relative, but I go great lengths of time between sightings (or hearings). They used to come, occasionally, to our feeders, but it's been years since that's happened, so I'll take the little ticking in the sky and be happy.

Franklinia altamaha in autumn

When I'm in the village I almost always stop by the big Franklinia tree up the road a bit from the general store. There are actually 3 examples of this tree in Whitesbog but the others 2--one by the general store itself and the other behind Elizabeth White's house--are pretty scrawny examples, while this tree is full and robust. 

The Franklinia tree has an interesting story. It was discovered in Georgia around 1765 by the great Philadelphia father-and-son botanists John and William Bartram. William brought back seeds of the tree and eventually was able to propagate the tree in their Philadelphia garden. Over the years he returned for more seeds but on trip could no longer find the stand of trees (which was only found in one, limited location on the Altamaha River) and by the early 1800's the tree was extinct in the wild. Various reasons for its demise in the wild have been put forth, including fire, flood, and overcollection--sound familiar?  In any case, all the trees that now grow (at one count there were only around 2000 of them worldwide) are descended from the seeds Bartram collected in the late 18th Century. The name of the tree is derived from Benjamin Franklin who was a great friend of John Bartram. In the summer, in bloom, it is a striking tree with large, cup-like flowers that have creamy petals and with golden-yellow stamens. Interestingly, I almost never see birds in it, and, in the summer, hummingbirds seem to pass it by. 

Flower

In summer

The rain stopped after about an hour and I managed to list 36 species on the bogs, Ditch Meadow, and in the Village.

Mallard  15
Green-winged Teal  4     Fenwick Bogs
Ring-necked Duck  2
Mourning Dove  3
Killdeer  7
Pectoral Sandpiper  6
Great Blue Heron  1
Cooper's Hawk  1
Northern Harrier  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  4
Hairy Woodpecker  1     Heard Village
Northern Flicker  3
Blue Jay  3
American Crow  3
Carolina Chickadee  6
Tufted Titmouse  6
Tree Swallow  6     Over Fenwick Bogs
Golden-crowned Kinglet  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Carolina Wren  1
European Starling  1
Northern Mockingbird  1     Heard village
Eastern Bluebird  4
Hermit Thrush  3
American Robin  100
House Finch  5
Purple Finch  1   
American Goldfinch  1
Dark-eyed Junco  3
White-throated Sparrow  30
Savannah Sparrow  3
Song Sparrow  10
Swamp Sparrow  3
Rusty Blackbird  2    
Yellow-rumped Warbler  6
Northern Cardinal  2