Great Bay Blvd 4/24--Clapper Rail, Short-billed Dowitcher, Seaside Sparrow

Short-billed Dowitchers

Since we got back from Mexico, I have been trying to catch up on the birds at home.  I'm reminded of what my late friend Pete Bacinski once told me when I was talking about our trip to Trinidad and Tobago: "Those aren't Jersey birds," he declared dismissively. 

So, not only have I been looking for new year birds, but I've also been trying to find warblers and sandpipers that I already have on my year list from Mexico. It just adds to the game. 

Black Skimmers

Today, I drove down to Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton--I was sure I could add easy birds to the Jersey/Ocean County list like Willet and Northern Yellow Warbler. I found Willets at the first stop I made, looking through the cedars at Tuckerton Cove, and I also found a quartet of Black Skimmers. The northern parts of Great Bay Blvd are one of the few places in the county where you can find skimmers, but these must be early because they were flagged as rare. They were distant and the light at 7:30 was directly in my eyes, so the photographs are barely doc shots. 

Stopping at the mitigation bulwark (what the bulwark is mitigating I've never discovered) I heard a thin buzzing that wasn't tinnitus. It took me a few moments to realize I was hearing a couple of Seaside Sparrows across the channel.  The same thing happened down the road when I stopped to look at some salt pans--this time it was "kek kek kek kek" in the background--Clapper Rail of course.  

The only year bird that I actually saw came later down the road at the boat launch. A sandbar had a huge number of shorebirds feeding on it. They were predominantly Dunlin, with a few Black-bellied Plovers thrown in. But also feeding among them were a few Short-billed Dowitchers, doing their typical sewing machine motions, probing the mud for goodies. Again, as you can see above, the light was bad and the birds distant. 

For the morning, 37 species.

Brant  91
Canada Goose  6
American Black Duck  1
Green-winged Teal  15     Tuckerton Cove
Mourning Dove  7
Clapper Rail  3
American Oystercatcher  1
Black-bellied Plover  14
Short-billed Dowitcher  5
Willet  20
Greater Yellowlegs  25
Dunlin  180
Laughing Gull  4
American Herring Gull  50
Great Black-backed Gull  4
Black Skimmer  4     
Forster's Tern  25
Common Loon  1
Double-crested Cormorant  12
Glossy Ibis  7
Black-crowned Night Heron  3
Tricolored Heron  1
Snowy Egret  12
Great Egret  8
Osprey  2
Merlin  1
Tree Swallow  2
Barn Swallow  15
European Starling  1
American Goldfinch  1
Seaside Sparrow  4
Song Sparrow  4
Red-winged Blackbird  100
Boat-tailed Grackle  75
Common Yellowthroat  5
Northern Yellow Warbler  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1