Now that we are almost a third of the way through March, I have been getting a little antsy to get some of the "gimme" birds onto my year list. Today, a couple of species added themselves to list.
For unpleasant reasons, I had to spend the last 3 days in Browns Mills, so in the mornings I've been going to Whitesbog. Yesterday, once the fog lifted, I saw two grebes in the Middle Bog, which I at first assumed were Pied-billed Grebes, not an especially unusual species for the bogs, but always a happy sighting. Except something about them didn't look right in the gray light. When I drove back, I stopped, broke out the scope and after scanning through a small flock of Hooded Mergansers I relocated the two grebes which turned out to be, as I suspected, Horned Grebes. I was pretty certain those were the first Horned Grebes I'd seen at Whitesbog and checking later, I found I was correct. What I didn't realize was that they were the first Horned Grebes for my Burlington County list which wasn't that surprising when I thought about it, since I rarely go anywhere in the county where you might encounter them, like the Delaware River.
Today, to change it up, I decided to walk the Ocean County section. There were lots of migrating geese and some ducks in the various flooded and abandoned blueberry fields, including a couple of Lesser Scaup, which are scarce there. But it wasn't until I was on the return leg that I got my first year bird. Scott has often said how superstitious birders are--if you saw a great bird one spot, then you'll always look in that spot again, no matter how unlikely it is for history to repeat. Today, as I was walking toward the main road, I stopped and decided to walk on a grassy trail that that runs behind a field--a couple of years ago I had come across a Great Horned Owl in there at mid-day, so who knows, maybe there would be another. Of course, there wasn't, but I did hear, and eventually track down, my first Pine Warbler of the year. So the superstition pays off. Normally, in the winter, we have Pine Warblers at our suet, but this has not been a normal winter and only Yellow-rumps (and--much more exciting--an Orange-Crowned Warbler) have been nibbling away at the fatty cakes.
This afternoon, as I was going outside to check on more tree damage from the blizzard, I saw a big blur dash behind the house--rounding the corner I saw it was my first Wild Turkey of the year, another bird that usually doesn't take this long to appear. I thought it was just the single tom, but when I went out to the brushy area beyond our lawn I saw there was an entire flock out there--Shari & I eventually counted 26 on our lawn, attracted, no doubt by all the seed I flung out there. Where the turkeys have been hiding out all winter I don't know, but driving back from an errand late this afternoon, I saw a couple more a few blocks away, so soon they'll be stopping traffic and antagonizing dogs. Which passes for entertainment on Sunset Road.
