Butler Beach 4/10--Forster's Tern

Forster's Terns

I had just about finished kicking around Colliers Mills this morning, walking my usual route around Turnmill Pond and then to a little pond past the power line cut. Nothing new for the morning--no early Prairie Warblers as I was hoping. There were a lot of Palm Warblers about in an almost 1/1 ratio with the Pine Warblers. I was on my way back, about 1000 feet from the car when I got a text from my friend Dianna that again this year a Barred Owl had returned to the box in the woods behind her house.

Even though I have heard Barred Owl this year (at Eno's Pond in February), there's nothing like seeing one, so I drove over to her house (an undisclosed location) and saw the bird (at least it's top half) in the box, eyes open. Owls do not look like they're happy to see you, so we kept our distance and kept our visit brief.

Dianna has been investigating some of the little known and less birded areas of Berkeley. I haven't spent much time there, despite these spots being closer to my house than Barnegat or Manahawkin. A lot of the area was swamped by Sandy and it is only now that some improvements have been made. She offered to show me some of her spots so off we went.

Before she had texted me I had been considering driving down to Eagleswood or Tuckerton to see if I could find "a" Forster's Tern, since there have been scattered reports of them recently. I didn't relish the idea of all that driving from Colliers Mills. So I was very happy when we drove to the end of Butler Blvd, which ends at the bay, when Dianna looked at a bulkhead on the right and asked, "Are those terns?" They surely were. 31 Forster's Terns by our count.

We then drove and walked a few more places on the bayshore and marshes. Some of the places I'd investigated briefly a long time ago. The most interesting place, I thought, is another Forsythe outpost called Murray Grove which is near Good Luck Point. There's an old AT&T building in the marsh and area has an air of desolation that I like. Last year, I walked along this road for a bit but the marshes were empty. Today we saw both egrets, a Tricolored Heron, a couple of Glossy Ibises, a Peregrine Falcon on a newly built nesting platform and the inevitable Bald Eagle flying over. A really interesting area with the water of the marsh about 1 inch below road level; I just wish there was a safer place to park and that the road construction in that area, which was going on last year too, was finally finished.

I wonder if that owl is hooting behind Dianna's house tonight.

Laughing Gull

Except...

There's no flush involved.

What at first seems to be a clever idea, turns out, after a moment's consideration, to be nonsense. There's a lot of that going around. 

Great Bay Blvd 4/8--Black-bellied Plover & Don't Tell Me About Eagles

Black-bellied Plovers (digiscope)

I had to hang around the house until around 10 so I didn't get down to Manahawkin until mid-morning. I was hoping for some herons or shorebirds down there and found nothing new. I drove down to Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton hoping for the same thing. Pretty disappointing. No Barn Swallows by Capt. Mike's or at the Rutgers facility yet. Nothing at the boat launch before the 2nd wooden bridge. I was walking around looking into the cedars, thinking maybe I'd find a night-heron, when I looked into the marsh to the north and saw some shorebirds with Brant. I figured they were just more yellowlegs, but diligence required that I go back to the car and get out the scope. Glad I did because they turned out to by FOY Black-bellied Plovers. Too far away for anything but a crappy digiscope but at least it was something new.  New for the county was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet down at the end of the road. I thought I'd have to wait around for the cold weather to get another chance to see this species so I was happily surprised.

The eagles are their usual nest down at the end of the road. I was a birding ambassador again this afternoon when I saw a couple looking into the marsh. Since the woman had binoculars, I thought she was looking at the eagle and that they might be interested in seeing it in the scope. They weren't even aware that there was an eagle there and were very pleased to see it sitting on the crossbars of a pole one over from the gigantic nest that is going on two years old.

So, I can be a nice guy but Zirlin's First Law of Birding which states, "If a guy in a pick-up truck asks you if you've seen any interesting birds, he doesn't care, all he wants to do is tell you about eagles he has seen," was on full display today while I was along Stafford Avenue toward the Bridge to Nowhere. A couple of workers for the Ocean County Water Utility (in a county pick-up, of course) stopped me and the driver, with the butt of an unlit cigar in his mouth, asked me the First Law's question verbatim and, since I could tell what was coming, I said, "Don't tell me about eagles!"

He was a little taken aback, since that was exactly what he intended to do. He also had a trove of stories about Ospreys and Red-tailed Hawks he had intended to trot out. I recited the Law to him and his buddy. They allowed as how it was probably true. We then went out to discuss the location of mysterious freshwater pond that the driver hadn't been able to locate, the size of crabs in the impoundments, and the sad history of the Bridge to Nowhere itself and parted amicably.

On my way back up the road I saw a guy in a pick-up truck getting in and out of it every 100 feet or so. He'd go into the marsh, look around, then return to the truck, drive a bit, and repeat his quick dash into the marsh. At first I thought he was looking for a spot to dump illegally but since he didn't have anything in the back of the pick-up, I thought he might be doing some sort of survey but I don't know. His truck was unmarked. I passed him on his third or fourth foray into the marsh. He pulled up to me just as I was about to go back on the trail, rolled down his window, told his barking dog to hush and then asked me if I'd seen "the" eagle. I only wish Mike was with me to experience this. Unbelievable.

Yes, I saw it. "He's beautiful, isn't he?" he remarked. So I knew we weren't looking at the same eagle, because the one I saw was an immature. "Oh, I wouldn't know what that looked like," he said, and drove back up the road.

Franklin was right. The turkey would have been a much better national bird.

The list for Great Bay Blvd:

24 species

Brant  25

Surf Scoter  1

Bufflehead  3

Red-breasted Merganser  2

Black-bellied Plover  6    

Greater Yellowlegs  2

Herring Gull  25

Great Black-backed Gull  3

Common Loon  2

Double-crested Cormorant  25

Great Egret  12

Snowy Egret  1

Osprey  10    

Bald Eagle  1    

Northern Flicker  1

Tree Swallow  5    Have nested in hole in pictured piling in previous years. 

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1

American Robin  3

Chipping Sparrow  1

Dark-eyed Junco  2

Song Sparrow  3

Red-winged Blackbird  5

Common Grackle  1

Boat-tailed Grackle  15

Tree Swallow on piling. Nest hole at left.

Manahawkin WMA 4/5--Glossy Ibis, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Glossy Ibis

When I left the house it was "unseasonably cool," a euphemism for a cold, damp, windy, drizzly morning, but I headed down to the Manahawkin WMA anyway for the 6th time in 10 days because its combination of habitats gave me the best shot at something new before the weather deteriorated completely. The Townsend's Solitaire has not been spotted since Tuesday and not heard (I'm a little dubious about hearing the squeak of a western rarity; others aren't) since Wednesday.

The woods were fairly quiet on my way out to the impoundments and the birds out there were what I'd expect to find. I walked all the way out to Stafford, but decided that with the wind, it was pointless to go any farther--peering east down toward the Bridge to Nowhere I saw nothing that looked worthy of investigation.

It wasn't until I made the left turn at the T that I saw 4 dark shapes about halfway down the trail. At first, looking through the phragmites under the overcast sky, I took them for black ducks standing in very shallow water. A little closer and a little fewer phragmites revealed them to be my FOY Glossy Ibises. They'd been reported there the last few days, but only a flyovers. I knew that sooner or later I'd get them, but I was rather that it was sooner.

Walking back through the woods, I came up to the now famous "second field" where the TOSO has been viewed. Suddenly there was some activity in the trees and tangles--robin, chickadee, titmouse, nuthatch and yes! as hoped for, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, perhaps a little early for gnats. It was really hopping around the branches, never staying on a twig for more than a second, so, considering my clumsy gloves, slow focusing camera, and generally poor lighting, I didn't even bother taking the lens cap off.

Happy enough to add two year birds I moved a little faster as my hands got a lot colder. With 2.3 miles walked, I still needed more steps, so I drove over to Cloverdale Farm where there was nothing new but enough birds to keep the walk interesting, including a lingering Pine Siskin and the ever present and always pretty bluebirds.

My Manahawkin WMA list:

29 species (+1 other taxa)

Canada Goose  2    have seen a pair at the "T" the last few times I've been here

Mute Swan  6    Nesting, unfortunately

Blue-winged Teal  2    Back impoundment

Mallard  4

American Black Duck  25

Mallard x American Black Duck (hybrid)  1

Green-winged Teal  30

Hooded Merganser  3    Back impoundment

Ring-necked Pheasant  1    A survivor. Male in mowed field south of first field

Mourning Dove  1

Greater Yellowlegs  17

Herring Gull  5

Great Egret  2

Snowy Egret  7

Glossy Ibis  4    Back impoundment.

Turkey Vulture  1

Bald Eagle  1    Flying over back impoundment, low

Belted Kingfisher  2

Downy Woodpecker  1

Blue Jay  1    Heard

Tree Swallow  10

Carolina Chickadee  1

Tufted Titmouse  1

White-breasted Nuthatch  1

Carolina Wren  2    Heard

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1

American Robin  7

Song Sparrow  2

Red-winged Blackbird  20

Yellow-rumped Warbler  3

Manahawkin WMA 4/1--Least Sandpiper, Townsend's Solitaire

Townsend's Solitaire

I got a late start on the new month because a friend was staying over so I didn't get down to Tuckerton until mid-morning, which had its advantages since the weather had warmed up at least a little bit by then. Still too windy to walk along Great Bay Boulevard and I wasn't finding anything I'd hoped for. With the cold weather the swallows had disappeared from Tip Seaman Park so the Northern Rough-wings that had been there Sunday were somewhere else. No night-herons in the marsh. No interesting shorebirds. So I drove up to Manahawkin, hoping that the impoundments would have some new shorebirds for the year.

Normally, if I was going to check the impoundments, I'd park on Stafford and walk back through there, since it is much closer to the water. But since Stafford looks like the aftermath of a bombing run, I instead parked in the lot off Hilliard, shouldered my scope and took the long walk through the woods of fields.

I wasn't hearing or seeing much passerine action, not surprising with the wind blowing. It wasn't until I was at the end of the "second field" that I heard as much as a chickadee. When I was there on Friday one of the birders looking for the Townsend's Solitaire ducked into a little trail that I'd never noticed before. I put down my scope and took a look in there because I heard something which turned out to be 2 Northern Flickers talking to each other. Then I looked into the crisscrossing branches of a tree right in front of me and saw a bird with a big white eye ring. Holy smokes, there's the bird!

Since the bird was spotted on Thursday, no one else had seen it. A few respectable birders had reported hearing it but I was dubious (especially with all the spring peeper noise around) and besides, with a bird like this, I wanted to see it. And now I was. So I upped the ante. I wanted to photograph it. But all I could see of the bird at any one time was either its eye or its belly and all my camera could focus on was twigs and brown leaves.

I texted Mike that I had the bird in case he was in the vicinity. I kept shifting my angle, very cautiously because I didn't want to scare the bird and then I thought I'd lost it. I played its call on my phone and found, when it flew up onto a branch, that while I was shifting right, it was shifting left and out of my sight line. It stayed on the branch long enough for me to take about 20 photos.

I put out an alert and my phone started to explode. Bob D called me from Brig, unaware of the alert, asking if I still needed Blue-winged Teal for the year. "Bob, I just saw the Townsend's." He was at marker 4. Don't tell anyone, but he backed up from there and somehow hit a gap in the space/time continuum, ending up at the spot well before I thought he'd get there. I'd lost the bird by then and was out by the impoundments, looking through yellowlegs for a lesser. Didn't find one, but I did come across an early Least Sandpiper.

Bob called me and I huffed my way back to where the bird had been. Another bird, Rod, had seen my alert and also had come over from Cloverdale. Soon, Don, one of the original quartet who had reported the bird on Thursday showed up while Rod and I were standing around. Bob had gone to the impoundmennts to look for the Least. While Rod went to look on the little trail, Don put up his binoculars and casually said, "There it is." I texted Bob, called Rod. By then, a lot more birders were showing up and without going into a blow by blow, everyone there, as far as I know, got to see the bird. It was a lifer for a couple of them.

The last couple of solitaires in NJ have been one day wonders, but the couple before them were long-staying birds and it looks like this one is going to hang around for a while too. I put out directions on Jerseybirds on how to find the "second field," since there was constant confusion on the alert app. I didn't realize that Manahawkin, which has the 3rd largest species list in the county, was so unknown to most birders. I think a lot of the listings have come from those driving down Stafford and looking into the marsh. The upland part of it isn't as heavily birded. Until now.

March 2018--10 Year Birds, One Life Bird

Northern Cardinal, Manasquan River WMA

Sure, Shari & I got a life bird (GYRFALCON) at Brig this month and how often does that happen anymore in New Jersey; sure, I added 10 year birds for the month; sure, I came across a number of rarities (Rough-legged Hawk, Sandhill Crane, Orange-crowned Warbler just as a for instance); but given my mordant thoughts of late, let's concentrate instead on the negative, the misses.

Missed the Black-headed Gull in Ocean County...again.
Missed the California Gull
Couldn't find the Barn Owls in deepest Salem County.
Missed the Townsend's Solitaire at Manahawkin...oh wait...see the entry above.

Anyway, the tally was 131 species for the month, one more than the previous month.

Counties birded: Atlantic, Burlington, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Salem.

Species       First Sighting

Snow Goose   New Egypt

Brant   Point Pleasant Beach

Canada Goose   Jackson Memorial HS

Mute Swan   deCamp Wildlife Trail

Trumpeter Swan   Assunpink WMA

Tundra Swan   Colliers Mills WMA

Wood Duck   Reeves Bogs

Blue-winged Teal   Manahawkin WMA

Northern Shoveler   Brig

Gadwall   Butterfly Bogs

Eurasian Wigeon   MacLearie Park

American Wigeon   Imlaystown Lake

Mallard   Crestwood Village

American Black Duck   Butterfly Bogs

Northern Pintail   Prospertown Lake

Green-winged Teal   Forsythe-Barnegat

Canvasback   Little Silver Lake

Redhead   Assunpink WMA

Ring-necked Duck   Butterfly Bogs

Greater Scaup   Point Pleasant Beach

Lesser Scaup   Little Silver Lake

Common Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Surf Scoter   Point Pleasant Beach

White-winged Scoter   Point Pleasant Beach

Black Scoter   Manasquan Inlet

Long-tailed Duck   Point Pleasant Beach

Bufflehead   Butterfly Bogs

Common Goldeneye   Bayview Marina

Hooded Merganser   Butterfly Bogs

Common Merganser   Prospertown Lake

Red-breasted Merganser   Point Pleasant Beach

Ruddy Duck   Lake of the Lilies

Ring-necked Pheasant   Colliers Mills WMA

Wild Turkey   New Egypt

Pied-billed Grebe   Assunpink WMA

Horned Grebe   Oceanic Bridge

Red-necked Grebe   Marshall's Pond

Rock Pigeon   Jackson Liberty HS

Mourning Dove   35 Sunset Rd

American Coot   Lake of the Lilies

Sandhill Crane   New Egypt

American Oystercatcher   Sandy Hook

Piping Plover   Island Beach SP

Killdeer   Lakewood Wawa

Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Dunlin   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Purple Sandpiper   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

American Woodcock   Sandy Hook

Wilson's Snipe   Mannington Marsh

Greater Yellowlegs   Brig

Laughing Gull   Point Pleasant Beach

Ring-billed Gull   Jackson Liberty HS

Herring Gull   Crestwood Village

Iceland Gull   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Lesser Black-backed Gull   Sylvan Lake

Great Black-backed Gull   Point Pleasant Beach

Red-throated Loon   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Common Loon   Point Pleasant Beach

Northern Gannet   Manasquan Inlet

Great Cormorant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Double-crested Cormorant   Point Pleasant Beach

Great Blue Heron   deCamp Wildlife Trail

Great Egret   Meadowedge Park

Snowy Egret   Manahawkin WMA

Tricolored Heron   Manahawkin WMA

Black Vulture   New Egypt

Turkey Vulture   Butterfly Bogs

Osprey   Great Bay Blvd

Northern Harrier   Assunpink WMA

Sharp-shinned Hawk   35 Sunset Rd

Cooper's Hawk   Assunpink WMA

Bald Eagle   Jackson

Red-shouldered Hawk   Meadowedge Park

Red-tailed Hawk   Jackson

Rough-legged Hawk   BC Fairgrounds

Long-eared Owl   Monmouth County

Belted Kingfisher   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Red-bellied Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd

Downy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd

Hairy Woodpecker   Crestwood Village

Northern Flicker   Assunpink WMA

American Kestrel   Jacobstown Road

GYRFALCON   Brig

Peregrine Falcon   Cedar Bonnet Island

Eastern Phoebe   Brig

Blue Jay   35 Sunset Rd

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Fish Crow   Forest Resource Education Center

Common Raven   Colliers Mills WMA

Horned Lark   Jackson Liberty HS

Tree Swallow   Whitesbog

Carolina Chickadee   35 Sunset Rd

Tufted Titmouse   35 Sunset Rd

Red-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd

White-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd

Brown Creeper   Cloverdale Farm

Carolina Wren   35 Sunset Rd

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Cranberry Bogs-Dover Rd

Eastern Bluebird   Colliers Mills WMA

Hermit Thrush   Manasquan River WMA

American Robin   Crestwood Village

Gray Catbird   Assunpink WMA

Brown Thrasher   Manahawkin WMA

Northern Mockingbird   Lake of the Lilies

European Starling   35 Sunset Rd

Cedar Waxwing   Sandy Hook

House Finch   35 Sunset Rd

Pine Siskin   Cloverdale Farm

American Goldfinch   35 Sunset Rd

Chipping Sparrow   Jackson Memorial HS

Field Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

American Tree Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

Fox Sparrow   Manasquan River WMA

Dark-eyed Junco   35 Sunset Rd

White-throated Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

Savannah Sparrow   Brig

Song Sparrow   Crestwood Village

Swamp Sparrow   Meadowedge Park

Eastern Towhee   Money Island Road area

Red-winged Blackbird   Lake Enno

Brown-headed Cowbird   Patriots County Park

Rusty Blackbird   Manahawkin WMA

Common Grackle   Butterfly Bogs

Boat-tailed Grackle   Great Bay Blvd

Orange-crowned Warbler   Mannington Marsh

Pine Warbler   Cloverdale Farm

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Sandy Hook

Northern Cardinal   35 Sunset Rd

House Sparrow   Lake of the Lilies

Killdeer, Whitesbog

Manahawkin WMA 3/29--Blue-winged Teal, Snowy Egret, Tricolored Heron

Tricolored Heron

Today is my birthday, so naturally I awoke to thoughts of death and mortality. Then I saw a message on my phone from Bob D who wanted to meet me down at Manahawkin to chase the Townsend's Solitaire that was there yesterday. It was from 5:30 AM, so I figured he was already there. He was close by; I gave him directions to the parking lot on Hilliard got dressed and ran out of the house, telling Shari I'd open her presents at dinner. Bob, who is my senior by quite a few years, was the perfect anecdote for the birthday mopes. When I grow up, I want to be like Bob and still have that enthusiasm for finding birds.

Breakfast was an energy bar and I skipped coffee altogether and got down there about 7:45. There was no real need to rush because, as I suspected yesterday, that bird was gone, despite the efforts of about a dozen people looking for it in all the appropriate habitat. One birder said he heard it call. Hearing a western rarity call doesn't do it for me and no one else was as lucky as he.

Snowy Egrets

But the day was not a waste at all. Bob & I walked out to the impoundments had got our FOY Snowy Egrets. There were plenty of ducks to look through and a few yellowlegs. We walked back to the area of where the bird was seen yesterday, met the man who heard it and proceeded to search, again with no luck. By then, more people were showing up, most of whom I knew, so I kept toggling between the impoundments and the fields with various combinations of birders.

An alert came through that a Tricolored Heron was in the back impoundment so I hustled out there. A rarity at this time of year. In a week, it'll be listed as common, but get 'em while you can, I say, especially when you start the day thinking the thoughts I had. When the Tricolored Herons return to Ocean County (this is about as far north in NJ as they regularly get) I send out an email to a friend who lives up north so that he and his son can make the excursion down here to put them on the list. In case he's reading...this is his semi-official notification.

Blue-winged Teal hen & drake

Even though I never expected to get the solitaire, I was hoping to add a somewhat difficult county bird to the list which I had seen listed and with the help of another birder's scope I finally was able to add Blue-winged Teal to the year & county list. Not a rarity by any means, but also not a duck you're going to find on every pond and puddle like Mallards.

So despite this being the 3rd time I've missed Townsend's Solitaire in the last two years (twice in the county), I had an excellent bird day with 3 year birds and 31 species for the 5 hours and 1 minute I spent there. It's only about a mile from the parking lot on Hilliard to Stafford Avenue, but if you walk it back and forth 3 or 4 times the hours add up.

31 species

Mute Swan  4

Blue-winged Teal  4    Back impoundment

Mallard  5

American Black Duck  50

Green-winged Teal  30

Hooded Merganser  1    Impoundment between Stafford Av and back impoundment.

Mourning Dove  1

Dunlin  2

Wilson's Snipe  1

Greater Yellowlegs  10

Herring Gull  10

Great Egret  2    Flyovers

Snowy Egret  2    Back Impoundment

Tricolored Heron  1    

Turkey Vulture  2

Osprey  1    On nest across Stafford Avenue

Belted Kingfisher  2

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1    Heard

Northern Flicker  1

Eastern Phoebe  1

Tree Swallow  10

Carolina Chickadee  3

Tufted Titmouse  1    Heard

Carolina Wren  1    Heard

American Robin  10

Fox Sparrow  1

Song Sparrow  3

Red-winged Blackbird  10

Brown-headed Cowbird  2    "Drip drip" call

Pine Warbler  3    Singing. Two chasing each other

Yellow-rumped Warbler  1    Trail off Stafford Avenue

Snowy Egret and Tricolored Heron in the back impoundment