Etra Lake | Assunpink 1/4--Trumpeter Swan, Pileated Woodpecker

 My best look ever at a Pileated Woodpecker and me without a camera.

I was up at Etra Lake early this morning, once again sorting through the thousand geese on the lake looking for a Greater White-fronted Goose. I've been looking for one all this winter, there and at Conine's Millpond in Allentown. Couldn't end the year with one, can't start the year with one. 

So, after looking at every goose, twice, I started my walk around the park. There is a peninsula where you can get a closer look at the waterfowl and I scanned with binoculars from there. Figuring my chances of getting a photo of the goose were not good if it was going to be far out on the lake, I didn't bother carrying my camera--it's just another winter nuisance that slips off my shoulder and is hard to manipulate with gloves on. 

Walking back to the trail I heard a loud WOOK that I first thought was a robin but immediately dismissed and before I could run through any more possibilities, saw this huge Pileated Woodpecker fly down from one tree and land on another close by, giving me great unobstructed views. So many times that I've seen Pileated it has been partially blocked by the branches, or only half the bird was showing from behind a trunk. Not today. And me without a camera. I took a couple of shots with my phone; they are bad. Blown up, photoshopped, cropped, they show a woodpecker shape. Still, a real surprise and one of the joys of birding, finding what you don't expect. 

Assunpink isn't far away; I was confident I could add at least one rare bird for the day there. I parked by the lake was unpleasantly surprised to see it almost duckless. Then I saw a hunter pulling in his string of decoys and knew why. Still, they don't hunt what I was looking for, at least not in NJ. I walked the road that follows the lake stopping into the off shoots that go down to the lake shore. There actually were a decent number of Ruddy Ducks there in the narrow part of the lake, 3 Lesser Scaup and a Common Merganser. I came upon a duck hunter and he started to talk. He asked what I was looking for and when I said swans, he pointed to the Mute Swans floating by, but I told him I was looking for rarer ones. "Gray?" he asked.

"One of them is." 

He pointed to the east end of the lake and said he'd seen a gray one there. That's the immature Trumpeter Swan that's been with the two adults. I saw that he'd shot a Ruddy Duck. It looked even smaller dead than they do alive. I asked how they tasted but he wasn't sure. In fact, he asked me what kind of duck it was. I have nothing against hunting but I think you should at least know what you're killing. 

I continued along the road flushing huge numbers of sparrows--Field, Song, White-throated. Finally, at the extreme east end of the lake I found the Trumpeters. Pretty neat, they being probably the only 3 in the state. And I'm glad they were there, because I didn't feel like driving around to Stone Tavern Lake where they sometimes are. 

In birding, you can either wander around and see what's there, or you can be goal oriented. I usually prefer the former, but today at least I achieved one of my goals and wandering around also had its rewards.

Other new species for the year:

At Etra: Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Fish Crow

At Assunpink: American Goldfinch (which is amazing that the first 3 days of the year didn't produce one at our feeders).

Conine's Millpond | Lenape Trail 1/12--Cackling Goose, Lark Sparrow

Lark Sparrow, Lenape Trail, Plainsboro

The day started to get a little out of control toward the middle of the afternoon. Scott & Linda had an Assunpink trip this morning and we birded the hell out of the place without much to show for our efforts, besides the continuing Trumpeter Swans. I did get my year Field Sparrow over at Stone Tavern Lake, but that's not exactly a momentous find. The lake at Assunpink was virtually empty of ducks and geese, and Stone Tavern was worse with only two Mute Swans floating around. The weather was warm, which was great, but the weather is probably warm(ish) up north, so ducks and geese don't feel compelled to head south.

Scott suggested we try nearby Mercer Corporate Park and Conine's Millpond. There were a smattering of geese at the Corporate Park, so we didn't bother to check them out, but on the millpond we found out where all the geese in the area were. We figured 2500 of them honking their hearts out. Among them were a 4 Ring-necked Ducks, 4 Mallards, and 2 Common Mergansers, but best of all, and finally, a Cackling Goose which Scott was able to tease out of the flock. It's a talent that I do not possess, the ability to look at every goose thoroughly but quickly and find the one or two that are different.  In a flock of that many geese, Scott figures the odds are with you to find a cackler, but in flock that size they all quickly blur into "goose" to me.

A Cackling Goose and a new sparrow would have been good enough for me for one day and as I was just about to leave for home one of our group received a text that there was a Barnacle Goose and 3 hybrids at Thompson Park. I had no idea where Thompson Park was. When I Googled it, I came up with a park in Monmouth County which I remembered going by a few years ago. However, there is another Thompson Park, in Middlesex County, which is where the geese were. I was reluctant to head north so late in the day, but Barnacle Goose isn't exactly a gimmee in the state, so off I went with the correct GPS coordinates in my phone. It was about a half hour drive. The park itself seemed like nothing but a big lake, full of Ring-billed Gulls and Canada Geese. We located a couple of birders we knew, got on the geese and, disappointingly, the geese in question turned out to be four hybrids of, presumably, Barnacle Goose and Cackling Goose. Some people find hybrids fascinating. Some people like teasing out the various genetic strains. I'm not one of those people. I have a hard enough time identifying full species, I don't want to spend my energy figuring out if this goose is the product of a coupling of Barnacle Goose with Canada Goose or Cackling Goose, or what sub-species of either of those geese. I just spent close to an hour with a Cackling Goose and it wasn't until the end of the 50 minutes we were there that I was able to really convince myself that I had seen enough of the goose to say it was really a Cackling Goose. So, I felt like I'd been enticed to Middlesex County until false pretenses. I wasn't angry, exactly, but I wasn't happy. I suppose if there had really been a Barnacle Goose up there and I'd missed it, I'd be unhappy, but as it was a phantom goose, I was...just ready to quit for the day.

But wait, as they used to say in the infomercials, there's more! Wherever the hell we were in Middlesex County, nearby in Plainsboro, which was, according to who you were talking to was either 10 or 20 minutes away, there was a Lark Sparrow that was very cooperative. Lark Sparrow is bird that you don't get too often and as I was up there anyway and the whole gang was going for it, I followed them to the Lenape Trail in Plainsboro near a shopping center and power line cut. It was getting late and we were in danger of losing the light, but, as advertised, the bird was very cooperative. It took me a bit longer than everyone else to find on the construction planking next to the trail, but when I finally go the right angle I saw it well. They are neat little birds, with a harlequin facial pattern and a big dot in the middle of the breast. The photo below shows the unlikely habitat it has found to its liking for the last two weeks.

If a Cackling Goose hadn't been found at Deerhead Lake in Ocean County I would have counted the day a complete success. But, as the Third Rule of Birding states Wherever you are, you should be somewhere else. However, I understand there were approximately 500 geese on Deerhead Lake. My chances of finding the Cackler?

Conine's Millpond | Pole Farm 2/17--Greater White-fronted Goose, Short-eared Owl

Greater White-fronted Goose in the middle
(digiscope)

And sometimes it all works perfectly. Mike and I had a plan today and it worked better than we expected. We met at 1 in the afternoon instead of our usual morning rendezvous and headed up to the fields around Assunpink. We were looking for rare geese--both Barnacle and Greater White-fronted Goose have been in the area. We made a stop at a field where the GWFG had been reported yesterday but there was nothing there but standard-issue geese. "We should check the lake," Mike said, being Conine's Millpond in Allentown. All the geese there were at the back of the lake, away from the fishermen, so while they were a little jammed up, at least we didn't have to scan the entire body of water. We came up with quite few different species of ducks mixed in with the Canada Geese before Mike found the Greater White-fronted stuck behind a couple of larger geese. It was too far away for either of our cameras, but after much frustration because the goofy goose would drift behind another goose, it finally came out into a clear spot on the water and I was able to digiscope some truly terrible documentary photos. You can click on the photo above to make it larger and more awful.

We still had time before the main part of our plan kicked in, so we went up to Assunpink and scanned the lake with some other birders and came up with 10 species of waterfowl including a few Canvasbacks and Lesser Scaups. Then we went to the semi-secret spot to look the Long-eared Owl. I'd seen it last week. Funny story: When we first saw it in January, as I was being positioned by our friend into the exact spot I had to stand, my hat snagged on a twig and fell off. Last week, while kicking around in the same spot I couldn't find the owl. I was just about to quit when my hat snagged on a twig. I looked up. In a beam of sunlight, there was the owl. Today, I did not lose my hat. The owl (there is most certainly more than one in there) was in a different tree, even though the fresh pellets were scattered around the tree where we originally saw it.

This was all prelude to the main part of our plan, the reason we met so late. We drove over to the Pole Farm in Mercer County--crepuscular owls were our goal. As it seemed to be for many, because when we arrived at 4:15, the parking lot was more than half-full and photographers were assembling their artillery onto tripods while others were already set up on the muddy path between two grassy fields.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Before stopping there though, we walked back to grove of trees and looked for the (again, "the" is a misnomer, there are more than one) Northern Saw-whet Owl and after a little searching, Mike found one about 10 feet off the ground. The photographers we'd asked, on our way in, seemed disappointed that only one owl was showing, but that's because it was so tucked in that getting a clean shot was for them impossible. However, since on my tombstone it will say "HE ONLY NEEDED ONE" I was perfectly fine with the owl we saw and perfectly satisfied (well, not "perfectly" with the photo it allowed me.

Finally, we were prepared to settle in for the main event. Sunset today was 5:35. We were back on the muddy path at just about 5:10. We figured a good half hour before we saw anything. Northern Harriers still had the field (including one beautiful Gray Ghost). They are supposed to punch out at sunset and leave the field for the night shift. But probably because the sky was overcast and the winds were calm, we hadn't been standing there for more than a few minutes when I spotted a raptor that was flying like a bat, not a harrier. It was the first of the 3 Short-eared Owls that we saw today. The harriers were not happy with the competition and there were a couple of skirmishes that we watched. A harrier and an owl were parrying low to the ground when they both disappeared into the high grass. Neither came back up, that we could see. Much speculation but who knows?

This was a much better result than we had anticipated--usually it is some dim by the time the owls make their appearance that they are merely silhouettes in the gloaming. Today we got to see them in graylight, with their rufous tails and buffy bodies. They were fun to watch as they flopped above the fields. Much too far for photography for us. I'd be curious to see what the artillerymen came up with.

On our way back to the parking lot we saw 5 Savannah Sparrows in the muddy path and just near the rudimentary restrooms, a few Eastern Meadowlarks finished the day for us.

Savannah Sparrow

Cream Ridge 2/11--Ross's Goose

Find the white needle in the white haystack

Sure, Mike & I could have braved the snow, ice, & wintry mix--and the slick roads that go along with it--in Cape May county to chase the continuing Gyrfalcon on Nummy Island, but while we might be crazy, as our wives so often tell us, crazy fools we are not! Instead, we headed north of the weatherman's magic border I-195, as if the weather knows there's an asphalt line there above which no snow shall fall. Yet somehow, it works.

We started up in Seven Presidents Park in Long Branch and worked out way down along the North Shore ponds and ocean lookouts, gathering up the expected birds for a decent but humdrum list until we got down to Fletcher Lake in Bradley Beach. Fletcher Lake is home to a feral population of Muscovy Ducks. They're sorta countable since they're "established" (i.e. they breed, I've seen ducklings) but when they appeared on the rare bird list, Bob Auster immediately texted me that he saw we had "shamelessly" listed them, then admitted that a couple of years ago he did the same thing. I wouldn't have even made a list there if Mike hadn't spotted a couple of American Black Ducks, which we hadn't had today. When Mike & I do one of these multi-stop days, I start a list at the first place we bird, then only make a list when we add a new bird for the day. Otherwise, we would have twice as many lists for the day and we already have too many as it is. American Black Duck is not a very exciting "add" but immediately upon pointing them out, Mike found a much better duck--Eurasian Wigeon.

We both had the same thought: Good, now we don't have to go to the Shark River in Belmar and scope from a gas station for the Eurasian Wigeon that has been present there for the last couple of months. We hadn't seen the Muscovy Ducks, so there was no dilemma until we were driving away and saw three of them standing on a street corner as if they were waiting for a bus. So I listed them. Mike made me do it.

We wended our way down to Point Pleasant, gathering up more ducks at various ponds like a Wood Duck at Little Silver Lake and Lesser Scaup at Lake of the Lilies. An eBird alert appeared on my phone that the Ross's Goose that was found yesterday in a big flock of Snow Geese was still in the fields along Route 546 in Cream Ridge. Neither of us relished the idea of sorting through thousands of Snow Geese for the one outlier. In fact, of all the Ross's Geese I have seen, none has ever been in a flock. They've always been alone. But, a year bird's a year bird, so off we went back north to the horse country of Monmouth County.

Mike said that what we needed when we got there was a group of birders with the ROGO in their scopes. We got close to that dream. When we drove up there was one birder there with a scope who said he thought he had the bird. It was on the outer edge of the flock, weaving in and out and sticking its head down to feed but eventually, using a blue morph as a landmark, all three of us were able to agree on which goose we were considering and when it finally raised its head to look around it had a sweet expression on its face, due to the lack of the "grin patch" which really should be called the "grimace patch" since it makes all  Snow Geese look like they're very unhappy. The bird was very active and following it was like following the card in a game of thousand goose monte.

About one tenth of the flock of geese we were looking through

A note on orthography: I used to worry about the way words looked typographically when I was a printer and the 3 terminal esses in Ross's are, to my eye, very ugly and completely unnecessary. While I don't subscribe to the proposal of one of the bird organizations to do away completely with the possessive apostrophe (I don't like the way Ross Goose, Wilson Warbler, etc sound), I do think that the typographical practice of letting the possessive hang off the second ess (Ross' Goose) would be sufficient, efficient, and more attractive to the eye.

We tried for a few more rarities at Conine's Millpond in Allentown (where we did have three Bald Eagles calling to each other from the trees) and at Assunpink (where we added Trumpeter Swan to our waterfowl list), that was about it for the day. Of course, had we not gone to Assunpink via Stone Tavern Road but had taken Herbert Road instead, we probably would have stopped for the big flock of geese on the sod farm that contained the Barnacle Goose that has been in the vicinity for the last few weeks. Mike could have used it for a year bird. Another example of Zirlin's Third Law of Birding: Wherever you are, you should be somewhere else. 

January: 136 Species

Long-Tailed Duck (hen) Barnegat Light SP

Common Eider (hen), Barnegat Light SP

Cackling Goose with Canada Goose, Conine's Millpond
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

Red-tailed Hawk, Whitesbog

The edge of the dreaded Polar Vortex has kept me pretty much confined to quarters the last couple of days of this month, though I did get out yesterday for a walk along the Union Transportation Trail in Upper Freehold where I added my 136 species for the year, a hard one for me to get too, a Winter Wren moving rapidly through the undergrowth, but clearly seen--and heard.
I'm way ahead of my pace from last year and that's because I deliberately went after the "hard " birds like owls and rare geese, not to mention the Townsend's Warbler at the Trenton Sewage Ponds.

However, I didn't chase a Black Phoebe that was way up in Northern New Jersey, nor a Northern Shrike in the same vicinity. Or a hen Barrow's Goldeneye in the Delaware. I wasn't even tempted. Some birds are just too far.

I really concentrate on Ocean County and the surrounding counties with Mercer an honorable mention. I don't have a big Mercer list, but with the Townsend's Warbler this month, it has some really interesting birds on it, like last year's Ash-throated Flycatcher, and previous year's crossbills, Barnacle Geese, Virginia Rail, Least Bittern...even a Crested Caracara a few years ago. But generally I feel, the closer the rarity, the more valuable the rarity.

Birds I want for Ocean County, soon: American Woodcock, the aforementioned Winter Wren, a Purple Finch, and an American Bittern. That's quite a shopping list but not out of the question.

As to geese: We're still waiting for Pink-footed Goose and Ross's Goose to show up somewhere in the state.

Tomorrow is a new month. February tends to be really dead, so unless some new rarities show up I don't think I'm going to hit as high a number as I did this month. I'm not a "month" birder (yet) so I'm not going to go out of my way to get a Trumpeter Swan, for example, just to get a Trumpeter Swan for the month. However, if I happen to be in the vicinity....

Birds in bold italics are rarities for the month--either really rare, or just rare for the time of the year. All were exciting to see.

Species               First Sighting

Snow Goose   Brig

Brant   Sandy Hook

Barnacle Goose   Conine’s Millpond

Cackling Goose   Lake Takanassee

Canada Goose   Seven Presidents Park

Mute Swan   Lake Takanassee

Trumpeter Swan   Stone Tavern Lake

Tundra Swan   Whitesbog

Wood Duck   Little Silver Lake

Northern Shoveler   Monmouth Beach

Gadwall   Lake Takanassee

Eurasian Wigeon   Shark River

American Wigeon   Lake Takanassee

Mallard   Lake Takanassee

American Black Duck   Lake of the Lilies

Northern Pintail   Brig

Green-winged Teal   Allenhurst

Canvasback   Mathis Veteran's Memorial Park

Redhead   Lake of the Lilies

Ring-necked Duck   Mathis Veteran's Memorial Park

Greater Scaup   Bayview Ave Park

Lesser Scaup   Assunpink WMA

Common Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Surf Scoter   Sandy Hook

White-winged Scoter   Sandy Hook

Black Scoter   Sandy Hook

Long-tailed Duck   Sandy Hook

Bufflehead   Sandy Hook

Common Goldeneye   LBI Bayside

Hooded Merganser   Lake Takanassee

Common Merganser   Conine’s Millpond

Red-breasted Merganser   Sandy Hook

Ruddy Duck   Lake Takanassee

Ring-necked Pheasant   New Egypt

Wild Turkey   New Egypt

Pied-billed Grebe   Lake Takanassee

Horned Grebe   Sandy Hook

Red-necked Grebe   Sandy Hook

Rock Pigeon   Little Silver Lake

Mourning Dove   Seven Presidents Park

American Coot   Lake Takanassee

Sandhill Crane   Pemberton Twp MUA Fields

Killdeer   Lakewood Wawa

Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Sanderling   Manasquan Inlet

Dunlin   Manasquan Inlet

Purple Sandpiper   Manasquan Inlet

Spotted Sandpiper   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Greater Yellowlegs   Poplar St Boat Launch

Razorbill   Sandy Hook

Ring-billed Gull   Lake Takanassee

Herring Gull   Sandy Hook

Lesser Black-backed Gull   Lake Takanassee

Glaucous Gull   Manasquan Inlet

Great Black-backed Gull   Sandy Hook

Red-throated Loon   Monmouth Beach

Pacific Loon   Manasquan Inlet

Common Loon   Sandy Hook

Northern Gannet   Sandy Hook

Great Cormorant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Double-crested Cormorant   Point Pleasant Beach

Great Blue Heron   Lake Takanassee

Great Egret   Great Bay Bvld.

Black-crowned Night-Heron   Brig

Black Vulture   Fischer Blvd-Toms River

Turkey Vulture   35 Sunset Rd

Northern Harrier   BC Fairgrounds

Sharp-shinned Hawk   18 Aberdeen Avenue

Cooper's Hawk   Lake Takanassee

Bald Eagle   Sandy Hook

Red-shouldered Hawk   Brig

Red-tailed Hawk   Point Pleasant Beach

Rough-legged Hawk   Stafford Township

Eastern Screech-Owl   Beach Ave

Great Horned Owl   Beach Ave

Snowy Owl   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Long-eared Owl   Assunpink WMA

Northern Saw-whet Owl   Pole Farm

Belted Kingfisher   Bayview Ave Park

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Cattus Island County Park

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Marshall's Pond

Downy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd

Hairy Woodpecker   Assunpink WMA

Pileated Woodpecker   Assunpink WMA

Northern Flicker   Cedar Bonnet Island

American Kestrel   Pemberton Twp MUA Fields

Merlin   Toms River

Peregrine Falcon   Sandy Hook

Eastern Phoebe   Trenton Sewage Ponds

Blue Jay   Lake of the Lilies

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Fish Crow   New Egypt

Northern Rough-winged Swallow   Trenton Sewage Ponds

Tree Swallow   Trenton Sewage Ponds

Carolina Chickadee   35 Sunset Rd

Tufted Titmouse   Cattus Island County Park

Red-breasted Nuthatch   Cattus Island County Park

White-breasted Nuthatch   Cattus Island County Park

Brown Creeper   Colliers Mills WMA

Winter Wren   Union Transportation Trail

Carolina Wren   Sandy Hook

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Cattus Island County Park

Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Assunpink WMA

Eastern Bluebird   Cloverdale Farm

Hermit Thrush   Taylor Ln

American Robin   Marshall's Pond

Gray Catbird   Assunpink WMA

Brown Thrasher   Manahawkin WMA

Northern Mockingbird   Lake of the Lilies

European Starling   South Toms River

Cedar Waxwing   Taylor Ln

House Finch   Cattus Island County Park

Pine Siskin   Cloverdale Farm

American Goldfinch   35 Sunset Rd

Snow Bunting   Sandy Hook

American Tree Sparrow   Shelter Cove Park

Fox Sparrow   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Dark-eyed Junco   Whitesbog

White-crowned Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

White-throated Sparrow   59 White Rd, Jackson

Savannah Sparrow   Cedar Bonnet Island

Song Sparrow   Cattus Island County Park

Swamp Sparrow   Manahawkin WMA

Eastern Meadowlark   Pole Farm

Red-winged Blackbird   Cattus Island County Park

Brown-headed Cowbird   New Egypt

Common Grackle   New Egypt

Boat-tailed Grackle   Lake of the Lilies

Orange-crowned Warbler   Great Bay Bvld.

Palm Warbler   Trenton Sewage Ponds

Pine Warbler   Cloverdale Farm

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Cedar Bonnet Island

Townsend's Warbler   Trenton Sewage Ponds

Northern Cardinal   Assunpink WMA

House Sparrow   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Redheads, Lake of the Lilies

Crazy Day 1/28--Barnacle Goose, Pacific Loon, Townsend's Warbler + 3 Other Year Birds

Pacific Loon, Manasquan Inlet

Double-edged sword those rare bird alert apps. As Zirlin's Third Law of Birding so succinctly states: Wherever you are, you should be someplace else, so while I was doing the Pinelands Winter Survey yesterday at Whitesbog, turning up very little of interest, a Pacific Loon turned up in the Manasquan Inlet. Not a lifer or even a state bird, but a great rarity and and really great one for my county list and there was no way I could get to it, especially since one of my oldest (as opposed to eldest) friends, Suze, who I hadn't seen in a very long time and since she's moving to France for a year, will not see for a long time again was spending the weekend with us. I was hoping the bird would stick around and not drift south, as I am assuming this is the same bird reported last week about 15 miles north just off the coast.

About 8 this morning my phone started to buzz. The bird was still there. So was Suze. Friends are texting me, "Have you got the loon?" and I'm trying to explain about having my priorities in order. I helped Suze pack her car (never, of course, saying anything to her about the bird so she wouldn't feel rushed) and 15 minutes after she left I was warming up my car. The problem was that an alert had just come saying the bird was drifting out to sea. It sounded like I was going to miss my chance and I had already decided on Plan B. Just before I got to Rt 70 where I had to make a decision to go left or right, another alert pinged. Loon was back. I made a right.

Not unexpectedly, traffic at that time of the morning is maddeningly slow, especially once you get up around Lakewood and Brick. I pulled off at a Wawa to text a couple of friends already there whether the view was better from the parking lot or jetty. Parking lot seemed to be the answer. Down Rt 88 the phone kept pinging, but I didn't read anything until I was stuck at a railroad crossing in Point Pleasant, waiting for the North Jersey Coast Line train to creak north, and read that the bird was very close to the lot, just in front of one the storefronts.

I finally arrived, grabbed bins and camera, and as I got out of the car, said to no one in particular, "Show me the bird!" Two people pointed. It was right in front of me.

Note the prominent chinstrap

It was the best look I've ever had at a Pacific Loon. Usually, when I've seen them, they're debatable birds, in gray light, in swells, with the field marks obscured or hard to make out in a scope shaking from a winter wind. This loon was parading down the inlet like a fashion model, giving you all the poses. The Razorbill that was also diving in the inlet was "like so two weeks ago" that I didn't even bother to try for a photo.

Instead I drove 30 something miles to Allentown in the middle of the state, which had been Plan B. In Conine's Millpond a Barnacle Goose had been reported yesterday. Naturally. Indications were that it was still there. When I arrived I drove down Lakeview to view the water from the shore instead of where I usually park, up in the parking lot off Rt 539. There were, by my count, a gazillion Canada Geese to look through. In some areas of the flock it was just a carpet of geese.

Barnacle Goose (digiscope), Conine's Millpond

I did a quick sweep with my binoculars to no avail. I looked through the section of the flock closest to me through the scope. A Cackling Goose drifted through my view, but my theory is that in any large flock of Canada Geese there is at least one Cackler (and someone else there counted 2), so that didn't seem like a big deal. Since that technique didn't work either, I resolved to start on the left and work my way all around the lake with the scope. The first thousand or so geese were standard issue (with a few Mallards just to throw you off), but then a little goose with black stripes against a silvery back, a white face frame by black, swam into view, and I yelled, "There it is." Fortunately, no one was near me. Unfortunately, my camera battery had died in the cold at Point Pleasant Beach, so I had to try for some digiscope photos. The best I could do is above.

I drove around to the parking lot to make sure the birders up there were seeing the goose and all 3 turned out to be birders I knew. They did have the bird in their scopes, so we chatted a bit, but I was also thinking about trying to find an obscure pond in Mercer County where Greater White-fronted Goose has been reported sporadically all winter. That plan changed when one of my friends there received a text that a Townsend's Warbler was at the Trenton Sewage Facility. I said, "I'll meet you there," jumped in my car, didn't even say goodbye to anyone, and was off, taking I-195 west into a traffic jam. But the history with warblers at the sewage ponds is that they tend to stick around, so I didn't think a 20 minute delay was crucial.

I arrived at the facility and saw no one there. I walked the street toward where the warblers used to be until some entity cut down all the habitat. I didn't see any activity until an Eastern Phoebe (year bird) flew in front of me, perched on the fence, flicked its tail and was gone. I walked back to the parking and met the guy who'd reported the warbler along with my Allentown informant. He walked us back to where the bird was, a stand of pine trees screening the sewage ponds. His young ears could hear the bird chipping; we couldn't, but eventually the very active bird made popped out. Spectacular find. A Jersey lifer for me. Even if my camera was working, though, I'd never get a photo of bird like that.

The warblers still seem to be attracted to that spot, despite the habitat destruction. Must be enough midges and warm water to keep them there. Yellow-rumped Warblers were all over the place, as well as Pine and my first Palm Warbler of the year. Over the ponds we found five Northern Rough-winged Swallows feasting on what was drifting up from the ponds.

You don't always know where the alerts will take you. I didn't expect to drive from the ocean to the river today and I certainly didn't expect to add 6 year birds with such a late start. Pretty crazy.

Assunpink & Pole Farm 1/9--Long-eared Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl

Northern Saw-whet Owl, Pole Farm
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

I called a wise man yesterday to find out the secret locations of a couple of owls so that Mike & I could pursue our quest for cool and/or hard to find birds. Owls qualify as both. The wise man kindly gave me directions to both owls and early this morning, after a stop at Stone Tavern Lake so that Mike could pick up Trumpeter Swan for the year (cool and hard to find), we were stomping around a conifer plantation at Assunpink, looking for owl pellets. I thought I had followed the directions accurately but we had no visuals of pellets much less the owl. Not really unexpected as these things go--you can be looking right at an owl and never see it so well camouflaged are they.

We gave up and drove west to The Pole Farm, the old AT&T facility which once had hundreds of  transmission towers for international calls but is now a Mercer County park with grasslands where the poles once stood and a little cedar grove where Building #1 used to be. In that grove, somewhere, was at least one Northern Saw-whet Owl and once again we followed the directions closely, walking past the spot where last year we saw Long-eared Owls (and couldn't find them today even though I've been told they were back in residence) and once again we couldn't find the owl. We looked in every cedar tree in the area and I was just about getting disgusted when Mike called me over. There, in a small cedar, just steps off the trail, a little higher than eye-height, was the owl. We could have reached out and petted it. Another cool and hard to find bird for the day.

It was very windy today so instead of walking back to the car the way we came, through the grasslands, we took a more circuitous route which brought us through some woods where not a bird was evident. However, we still had to walk out in the open for a while and there, in the grasslands we saw our first Eastern Meadowlarks of the year--cool but not particularly hard to find.

We made a quick stop at the Trenton Sewer Facility, where for the last few years wintering warblers have been found but unfortunately for us and the warblers, most of the thickets of vegetation have been cut down affording little cover for the birds to escape the cold. We did see a trio of Tree Swallows (neither cool nor hard to find) snagging the many little flies that were emerging from the settling basins.

Cackling Goose in front, Conine's Mill Pond
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

At Conine's Mill Pond in Allentown (we're back in Monmouth County now), there were a couple of thousand Canada Geese (certainly not hard to find) but amazingly I espied one Cackling Goose among them and more amazingly, as the flock shuffled and reshuffled I was able to refind it when we drove over to the other side of the pond. Mike was able to get a fine photo documenting what for both us was our second Cackling Goose of the year. (Cool and supposedly hard to find but I think that in every large flock of Canada Geese there is a Cackling Goose and that they are listed as rare just to keep the misidentifications down to minimum on eBird.)

When we first started scanning the pond, looking for anything other than a goose on it, I came across a couple of Common Mergansers which were FOY for me but not Mike. (Cool, but as the name implies, not hard to find.)

After a brief stop at Colliers Mills where I was able to put Bald Eagle on my Ocean County list, we were heading back to Mike's place where I'd left my car when the wise man texted me, asking if we'd seen the owls. I told him we'd batted .500. He told me he was looking at the owl we missed. I groaned, but after calling the wise man, he kindly agreed to stay in place and show us the bird. We were about 20 minutes away from Assunpink if you took the speed limits with a grain of salt and when we got there the wise man led us to the grove and entered it about 40 feet closer than we had. Ironically, I was probably standing in more or less that spot two days ago when I was looking for the owl and abandoned by search for the Pileated Woodpecker. By now you've figured out that this was the Long-eared Owl of the post's title, a very cool bird and very hard to find and see. Mike and the wise man spent 5 minutes manipulating my neck, head, and posture until the bird finally came into focus, looking, seemingly, right at me. I realized that the wise man could have put flashing lights onto the base of the tree to show us where the owl was and without his precise directions as to what angle to put my head at, I still wouldn't have found the bird. Now I have to return the favor and find the wise man a Red-headed Woodpecker at Colliers Mills.

With 5 year birds tacked onto my list we left Assunpink and headed back with enough cool birds on the day for a work week.