Lake of the Lilies | Mathis Park 1/10--Wood Duck, Canvasback

Canvasbacks, Mathis Park

Today I methodically went looking for ducks--and geese. Did well with the ducks, getting my two favorites. Geese were another story.

I started the morning at Lake of Lilies, always a good winter spot for ducks. I was specifically trying to get my year Wood Duck. Wood Duck isn't that hard to find, but there weren't any at Colliers Mills the other day. Fortunately, after a cold snap, the weather was warm this morning and the lake was all open water. Mostly there were scaup on the water, both varieties, though more heavily of the Lesser variety, and quite a few Hooded Mergansers (which may be #3 on the duck hit parade). Toward the eastern end of the lake a big flock of Mallards was dabbling--both wild and a motley assemblage of domestic types. Mixed in with them, as it was late in December, was a fine looking drake Woodie.

Wood Duck  1    

Mallard  60

Mallard (Domestic type)  20

Greater Scaup  15

Lesser Scaup  125

Bufflehead  1

Hooded Merganser  21

Ruddy Duck  10

Pied-billed Grebe  1

American Coot  15

Ring-billed Gull  1

Herring Gull  50

Great Black-backed Gull  10

Double-crested Cormorant  3

Blue Jay  1    Heard

I stopped off at the Manasquan Inlet hoping for some activity but it was pretty quiet there--no Razorbills flying by or loafing off the jetty, no Purple Sandpipers on the rocks below. Both loons, some Long-tailed Ducks, gulls. The amusement of the day was watching three drift out of the inlet into the open water. They got pretty far out off the jetty. In my imagination one of the swans was saying to the other two, "Wait a minute! We're surrounded by loons and sea ducks. There's no food out here, the water's forty feet deep!" Because suddenly the trio picked up and flew back up the inlet toward the shallow end.

Then I drove up into Monmouth County trying for a couple of rare geese. Yesterday there was a Greater White-fronted Goose on Lake Como so I made that my first stop. There were 120 Ruddy Ducks on the water, but not a goose to be seen. Then. I was there around 10 o'clock. When I got back home this afternoon, I saw that around noon a big flock of geese was on the lake and among them was the Greater White-fronted. Obviously, they flew in after I left to go up to Lake Takanassee where I was hoping to find the Cackling Goose that has been reported on & off for a month. Again, no luck. There were only 60 or 70 Canada Geese to look through  and I looked at every one, so it is unlikely that I missed it. Bad timing and bad luck.

I figured I'd just go home but I saw that a friend of mine had my other favorite duck in South Toms River which is only a slight detour, so I went to Mathis Veterans Memorial Park and saw a dozen Canvasbacks floating in front of the houseboat. This was the third time this year I've looked for Canvasbacks in this very reliable location; the first two times I looked for them from Riverfront Landing, which is on the other side of Mathis, but because of the angles of the piers in the marina, it is sometimes impossible to see the ducks, even though you actually much closer to them than at Mathis. In any case, I got these, the largest of the North American diving ducks (really? Bigger than Common Merganser?) on my list. Even from a distance, they're an impressive duck. Canvasback also happened to be my 100th species for the year.

Nothing else of note on what is either the Toms River or an estuary. Surprisingly, no Ruddy Ducks that I could find which was odd, because both times at Riverfront, they were the predominant duck.

Mute Swan  2

Canvasback  12

Ring-necked Duck  1    with scaup

Lesser Scaup  9

Bufflehead  25

Ring-billed Gull  20

Herring Gull  30

Double-crested Cormorant  1

Monmouth County 1/3--Trumpeter Swan, Eurasian Wigeon

Ash-throated Flycatcher, Sandy Hook
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

Snow Goose

And lots of year birds on Day 3 of 2020. Because the forecast was for intermittent lousy, Mike and I decided to try to check off as many of the rarities currently in Monmouth County as we could. We did pretty well, starting at Sandy Hook, where Mike still needed the Ash-throated Flycatcher that has been there since late last year. Not only was it a year bird for him, but a state bird as well. Unlike New Year's Day when 34 people tromping around its area made the bird elusive, today we found the bird almost immediately. I was about to turn onto the Coal Road behind the lighthouse when Mike spotted the bird on the other side of the road. Living up to its reputation, it was active, but we managed some very good looks at it and Mike managed the photo above.
Also in the area was our year Hermit Thrush, which we first heard then tracked down by following the kissing call it made.

Probably the second most interesting bird today at The Hook was a Snow Goose mixed in with a big flock of Canada Geese on the field near the old Sandy Hook Bird Observatory building. In south Jersey you'll see thousands of Snow Geese this time of year, Mike did at Brig on the first, but the farther north you go, the fewer you find which is why eBird lists the species as "Infrequently Reported" on the peninsula.

We made a stop at Lake Takanassee looking for either the Cackling Goose or Barnacle Goose which have been in the area but struck out there; the Cackler turned out to be a few blocks south but we were long gone by the time we saw the report.

We stopped at some the North Shore "lakes", where I am slightly ashamed to admit we added Muscovy Duck to our year list at Fletcher Lake in Ocean Grove. I normally wouldn't count these ducks which have made their home at this artificial pond but since I have seen them with ducklings in the warm weather I can rationalize it that they are breeding there. The population certainly isn't spreading, but it does seem stable.

Then it was on to the Shark River where, once again, a Eurasian Wigeon has taken up residence. The preferred vantage point is the parking lot of gas station, but I don't feel comfortable setting up optics on private, commercial property, so we looked for it from the edge of MacLearie Park and Mike found it, again pretty quickly, standing on the narrow beach, surrounded by Brant. Good; now unless one shows up in Ocean County, that's another bird I don't have to think about for 363 days.

We then headed west to Assunspink--Stone Tavern Lake to be exact--in order to tick off Trumpeter Swan, another annual visitor. Whether these are the same swans that appear every year, or the habitat is just attractive to the species is hard to say (probably the former), but they are reliable and, being big, real easy to find. Other year birds on the lake were Ring-necked Ducks and Common Mergansers, giving us the merganser trifecta for the day. It is fortunate that those swans are big, because in the gloaming, visibility was getting difficult.

For the day we had 59 species. I added 20 species to the year list, ranging from the mundane (European Starling, Mute Swan) to some favorite species (Cedar Waxwing at Sandy Hook, Belted Kingfisher at Lake Tak).

Kicking Off the Year in Ocean & Monmouth Counties--Ash-throated Flycatcher

The Dawn of a New Year
Photo: Shari Zirlin

They're all new, again. After flagging in December, I felt my birding energy coming back this morning when I stepped outside. My first bird of the year? American Crow, three of them flying around the neighborhood and over the house. Not a great bird, but better than starling, House Sparrow, or pigeon.

Then Shari & I set off for our annual Kick Off the Year trip with Scott & Linda at Sandy Hook and down the North Shore. On the drive up we ticked off Turkey Vulture and the inevitable pigeons. The weather seemed mild when we stepped outside the house, but a stiff wind was blowing at the Hook, which discouraged land birds--and me. I hate wind more than I hate rain. We got a nice assortment of ducks at the Hook including the scoter trifecta, but the highlight of the trip was refinding one of the 2 or 3 Ash-throated Flycatchers that have remarkably been hanging around the northern end of the peninsula for more than a month. Shari & I were lucky enough to see it right away (use this birding strategy: stick close to the leader), but with a group of over 30, it took probably most of an hour for everyone on the trip to get a good look at it. This shortened our list as not a lot of other birds were in the area, though a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was goodie.

Late in the morning we caravanned down to some new (for me) spots to look at the ocean in Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach where we added a few ocean-going species, but nothing rare. We then birded another new park for me--Jackson Woods--where Scott had found a Yellow-breasted Chat last year but probably the sight and sound of 30 birders discouraged it from showing itself if it was still there.

A stop at Lake Takanassee to look for the Barnacle Goose was unsuccessful too. Last week, when Scott and Linda reported this bird in the area, my reaction was I already have Barnacle Goose for the year and not only for the year but for that county so I'm not about to rush up there for it--especially in the rain on Monday. But today I really really wanted that goose. Now I have to figure out when my and the goose's vectors can intersect.

The group's final stop was at Roosevelt Avenue in Deal where we added Purple Sandpiper to the day, month, year, and county list. I was fine with that being the last birding stop as I felt like a very long day though it was only around 2:45. Shari & I stopped at the Lakewood Wawa on the way home where the last two birds of the day, a Red-tailed Hawk and a Red-bellied Woodpecker, were added to the list. Alas, the once great Killdeer field next to the parking lot is now a barren, muddy construction site, yet still not crappy enough for birds like Horned Lark. It was the only down note of the day.

For our first day of birding we tallied 41 species:

Species   First Sighting

Brant   Sandy Hook

Canada Goose   Lake Takanassee

Gadwall   Lake Takanassee

American Wigeon   Lake Takanassee

Mallard   Jackson Woods

Common Eider   Sandy Hook

Surf Scoter   Sandy Hook

White-winged Scoter   Sandy Hook

Black Scoter   Sandy Hook

Long-tailed Duck   Sandy Hook

Bufflehead   Jackson Woods

Hooded Merganser   Lake Takanassee

Red-breasted Merganser   Sea Bright Pavilion

Ruddy Duck   Lake Takanassee

Rock Pigeon   Brick

Mourning Dove   35 Sunset Rd

American Coot   Lake Takanassee

Sanderling   Sandy Hook

Purple Sandpiper   Deal

Ring-billed Gull   Lake Takanassee

Herring Gull   Sandy Hook

Great Black-backed Gull   Sandy Hook

Red-throated Loon   Sandy Hook

Common Loon   Monmouth Beach

Northern Gannet   Sandy Hook

Black Vulture   Sandy Hook

Turkey Vulture   Toms River

Bald Eagle   Sandy Hook

Red-tailed Hawk   Wawa Lakewood

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Sandy Hook

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Wawa Lakewood

Ash-throated Flycatcher   Sandy Hook

Blue Jay   Jackson Woods

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Carolina Wren   Jackson Woods

Northern Mockingbird   Sandy Hook

American Robin   35 Sunset Rd

American Goldfinch   Lake Takanassee

Dark-eyed Junco   Sandy Hook

White-throated Sparrow   Jackson Woods

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Sandy Hook

Lake Takanassee 12/5--Hen Eurasian Wigeon

Eurasian Wigeon, hen

Mike and I birded the North Shore today, hitting a lot of the ponds. We found the drake Eurasian Wigeon on Lake Sylvan almost immediately, but another wigeon, in the back pool of Lake Takanassee was more intriguing. It had a reddish head but without the "baldpate" of drakes, a blue bill, and gray back. I've seen a goodly number of Eurasian Wigeon drakes, but never, up until today, a hen. I thought that hens of American and Eurasian were virtually indistinguishable, but this duck stood out to us. Maybe we were lucky with the way the sun lit the bird.

Cackling Goose with Canada Geese

A Cackling Goose continues there (it was on the grass with some Canadas, giving a good comparison). Down at the outflow pipe of Wreck Pond we found a hen Harlequin Duck. Rare for Monmouth, no big deal in Ocean. A good day for hens!

February Review--15 Year Birds

Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich ssp), Barnegat Light SP, with bling

Birding as a hobby: I go out and I walk around and I look for birds. I enjoy the birds for themselves--I watch crows mob first a Red-tailed Hawk, then a Northern Harrier at Manasquan River WMA; or I notice the bands on an Ipswich Savannah Sparrow; or I just admire how clean and crisp the Herring Gulls suddenly look as spring get closer.

Birding as a game: How many birds can I see today? This month? This year? In this county? In that county? Am I wasting my time in that county when I could be building up my list in this county?

This month it seemed like I alternated the hobby with the game every other day, although the game is always being played at some level. It is most satisfying when the hobby finds a bird I "need" for the game. The least satisfying is when I deliberately go looking for one bird for the game...and don't find it. Those are the times I have to remind myself, forcefully, that it's just a game, it is just a bird.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

With all that said, it was a pretty good month for the hobby and the game. Birds I wasn't expecting turned up, like the Barred Owl Mike and I heard at Eno's Pond on Sunday in the middle of the afternoon. We were just looking around there (hobby) and heard "Who cooks for you!" three times, adding the bird to our state and county lists (game). And it was a pretty good month for owls with a count of 4 species for the month: Barred, Saw-whet, Long-eared, Short-eared. Now, if we could only figure out where there's a Barn Owl in the state (hobby), preferably in Ocean County (game).

Now for some arithmetic: the 15 birds I added to my year list bring me up to 151 in two months. That's half of what I hope to see in NJ for the year. For the remaining 10 months of the year I will have to average 15 new birds a month--that should be easy in April and May during warbler migration and maybe in August during shorebird migration, but difficult the rest of the year, especially since I don't do pelagics so all the birds I see will be from land. That means I better enjoy the hobby because the game gets much more challenging hereon in.

Counties birded: Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Warren
127 species:

Species            First Sighting

Snow Goose   Brig

Ross's Goose   Cream Ridge

Greater White-fronted Goose   Conine’s Millpond

Brant   Manasquan Inlet

Cackling Goose   Etra Lake

Canada Goose   Bamber Lake

Mute Swan   Waretown

Trumpeter Swan   Stone Tavern Lake

Tundra Swan   Bamber Lake

Muscovy Duck   Fletcher Lake

Wood Duck   Little Silver Lake

Northern Shoveler   Lake Takanassee

Gadwall   Lake Takanassee

Eurasian Wigeon   Fletcher Lake

American Wigeon   Lake Takanassee

Mallard   Marshall's Pond

American Black Duck   Barnegat Beach

Northern Pintail   Forsythe-Barnegat

Green-winged Teal   Brig

Canvasback   Riverfront Landing

Redhead   Lake Takanassee

Ring-necked Duck   Marshall's Pond

Greater Scaup   Waretown

Lesser Scaup   Lake Takanassee

Common Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Surf Scoter   Point Pleasant Beach

White-winged Scoter   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Black Scoter   Manasquan Inlet

Long-tailed Duck   Waretown

Bufflehead   Waretown

Common Goldeneye   Cloverdale Farm

Hooded Merganser   Bamber Lake

Common Merganser   Marshall's Pond

Red-breasted Merganser   Waretown

Ruddy Duck   Riverfront Landing

Wild Turkey   New Egypt

Pied-billed Grebe   Lake Takanassee

Horned Grebe   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Rock Pigeon   New Egypt

Mourning Dove   Waretown

American Coot   Lake of the Lilies

American Oystercatcher   Brigantine Island

Killdeer   Cape May Point SP

Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Sanderling   Manasquan Inlet

Dunlin   Manasquan Inlet

Purple Sandpiper   Manasquan Inlet

American Woodcock   Crestwood Village

Greater Yellowlegs   Eno’s Pond

Bonaparte's Gull   Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal

Ring-billed Gull   Waretown

Herring Gull   Bamber Lake

Iceland Gull   Edison Boat Launch

Lesser Black-backed Gull   Lake Takanassee

Great Black-backed Gull   Waretown

Red-throated Loon   Brigantine Island

Pacific Loon   Manasquan Inlet

Common Loon   Manasquan Inlet

Northern Gannet   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Great Cormorant   Sayreville Marsh

Double-crested Cormorant   Riverfront Landing

Great Blue Heron   Cloverdale Farm

Black-crowned Night-Heron   Brig

Black Vulture   Pinehurst Rd

Turkey Vulture   Pinehurst Rd

Northern Harrier   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Sharp-shinned Hawk   Lake Takanassee

Cooper's Hawk   Colliers Mills WMA

Bald Eagle   Waretown

Red-shouldered Hawk   Cape May Point SP

Red-tailed Hawk   New Egypt

Rough-legged Hawk   BC Fairgrounds

Barred Owl   Eno’s Pond

Long-eared Owl   Assunpink WMA

Short-eared Owl   Pole Farm

Northern Saw-whet Owl   Pole Farm

Belted Kingfisher   Cattus Island County Park

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Downy Woodpecker   Collinstown Rd

Hairy Woodpecker   New Egypt

Pileated Woodpecker   Assunpink WMA

Northern Flicker   New Egypt

American Kestrel   Plumsted

Merlin   Cranberry Bogs

Peregrine Falcon   Sayreville Marsh

Eastern Phoebe   Assunpink WMA

Blue Jay   Poplar St Boat Ramp

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Fish Crow   New Egypt

Common Raven   Cranberry Bogs

Carolina Chickadee   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Black-capped Chickadee   Merrill Creek Reservoir

Boreal Chickadee   Merrill Creek Reservoir

Tufted Titmouse   Collinstown Rd

Red-breasted Nuthatch   Collinstown Rd

White-breasted Nuthatch   Cloverdale Farm

Brown Creeper   Colliers Mills WMA

Carolina Wren   Collinstown Rd

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Brig

Eastern Bluebird   Cloverdale Farm

Hermit Thrush   Collinstown Rd

American Robin   Bamber Lake

Gray Catbird   Assunpink WMA

Northern Mockingbird   Collinstown Rd

European Starling   Barnegat Municipal Dock

House Finch   Collinstown Rd

Pine Siskin   Cloverdale Farm

American Goldfinch   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Chipping Sparrow   Manasquan River WMA

Field Sparrow   New Egypt

American Tree Sparrow   Shelter Cove Park

Fox Sparrow   Collinstown Rd

Dark-eyed Junco   Collinstown Rd

White-throated Sparrow   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Savannah Sparrow   Pole Farm

Song Sparrow   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Swamp Sparrow   Whitesbog

Eastern Meadowlark   Pole Farm

Red-winged Blackbird   Barnegat

Brown-headed Cowbird   New Egypt

Rusty Blackbird   Oros Wildlife Preserve

Common Grackle   New Egypt

Boat-tailed Grackle   Manasquan Inlet

Pine Warbler   Colliers Mills WMA

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Northern Cardinal   Poplar St Boat Ramp

House Sparrow   Barnegat

Common Goldeneye, Cloverdale Farm