 |
| Red-necked Grebe |
Talk about your Frozen Wastes. This morning, having determined yesterday that there is nothing by icy paths and roads at all my usual spots, I tried Barnegat Lighthouse SP, figuring that the beach would clear of snow from wind and waves. The temperature was a balmy 27 degrees when I got there and the view from the concrete walkway showed I was partially right in my assumption. Not that that there weren't some slippery slidey parts of the walkway itself. Scoping out over the inlet, I saw mostly
Red-breasted Mergansers and
Common Loons. If I wanted to see anything new for the year, I was going to have to make my way out to the ocean, I thought. I was weighing my adventurous potential on the way back toward the lighthouse, reminding myself that slush was safer to walk on than what might be hidden beneath snow, when I turned to my right just at the entrance and saw a bird I hadn't seen all of last year. With its long, yellow, dagger-like beak and bulky body, there was no mistaking a
Red-necked Grebe. The question was, with three pairs of gloves on would I be able to extricate my camera from my bag and would if I could, would I be able to take photos before the bird dove or disappeared. The answer was obviously "yes" but it wasn't easy especially considering that the outer pair of gloves were actually mittens. I may as well have been wearing boxing gloves.
 |
| Ruddy Turnstones |
But the sight of the grebe reinvigorated me and, after eschewing the ice-caked steps down to the beach and taking another path instead, I made my way across the permafrost to the inland pond which was almost completely frozen. Some of the walking was fine, frozen sand, and some of the walking was on and occasionally through 6 or 7 inches of ice and snow. When I finally made my way out to the ocean I was rewarded with the sight of 7
Common Eiders, new for the year, along with lots of
Great Cormorants on the jetty and far out along the rocks 4
Harlequin Ducks. Scanning along the jetty (which was totally inaccessible) looking for
Purple Sandpipers, I came across some sleeping
Ruddy Turnstones another bird that has avoided me this year. A couple of big flocks of
Dunlins flew onto the jetty and in the second one I managed to find the Purple Sandpiper scattered through the flock.
Now, I only needed one more species to make the trek more or less a success. I turned off the beach and walked through what in the summer would be the pond's mud flats, looking for land birds of which there were none. Back up on the slope overlooking the pond, I found a few more new species for the day, including a couple of Black-bellied Plovers and then, out of nowhere, the birds I was hoping for--Snow Buntings--flew over my shoulder and practically landed on my toes before moving along in front of me. While I had Snow Bunting for the year, up at Sandy Hook, I hadn't come across them yet in county.
For the morning's efforts 36 species, which is way more than I've been getting in the frozen parks and bogs. They were:
Brant 5
Canada Goose 10
American Wigeon 1 Inlet!
Mallard 10
American Black Duck 40
Greater Scaup 2
Common Eider 7
Harlequin Duck 4
Surf Scoter 2
White-winged Scoter 3
Black Scoter 25
Long-tailed Duck 50
Bufflehead 15
Red-breasted Merganser 100
Black-bellied Plover 2
Ruddy Turnstone 11
Sanderling 6
Dunlin 125
Purple Sandpiper 13
American Herring Gull 100
Great Black-backed Gull 30
Red-necked Grebe 1
Great Cormorant 30 Many. Probably more
Double-crested Cormorant 10
Great Blue Heron 1
Bald Eagle 1 Flew over inlet toward IBSP
American Crow 1
Horned Lark 1 Pool
European Starling 15
American Robin 25
House Sparrow 1
Snow Bunting 20 Pool
Savannah Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich) 2
Song Sparrow 6
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
Northern Cardinal 1
