Colliers Mills 4/20--Common Yellowthroat

WMAs are still open and yet, despite the huge acreage in Colliers Mills, my ideal formula for social distancing

SD=me + 0

was thwarted by a one guy walking a very large and especially unfriendly dog. He was considerate enough to put it back on its leash, which may have made the dog more unfriendly. It made my route around Turnmill Pond peculiar in that I circled it one and half times, walking the same stretch of Hawkin Road 3 times in order to avoid him and growling beast. 

This is about the time of year I can start finding new birds in Colliers Mills in quantities to compensate for the long stretches of non-interest, but today I was only able to hear one new one, a persistent but hidden Common Yellowthroat at the north end of Turnmill Pond, deep in the phrags. It happens like that to me often with yellowthroats. I'll keep hearing them in various spots but it might be a month before I actually see one. 

But in my perambulations I did find some favorite birds, birds I always like to see. On the little pond up Hawkin Road I found a pair of Wood Ducks; it's a good spot for them to nest. Walking in the woods to the east of the Police Shooting Range (where they are still shooting) I once again was able to track down a Red-headed Woodpecker. I heard something in the woods, and while it wasn't any of the calls I have on my phone app, I knew from the scrabbling chattering that it was a Red-head and a few minutes tramping toward the sound led me to the bird as if flew from one tree to the other. Either these birds are moving around from that spot to the woods north of Success Road or there are 

more than a couple of birds there. I vote for the latter. 

Another point of interest--with the Red-headed Woodpecker, I had a 5 woodpecker day at Colliers Mills. As to warblers, the Yellow-rumped Warblers are beautiful now in full breeding plumage, I came across one Palm Warbler, and of course, Pine Warblers are around and singing and sometimes I can even tell them apart from Chipping Sparrows. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers seemed to buzzing everywhere. Ring-necked Ducks were still hanging in there at Turnmill. I'm surprised they're not flagged as "rare" yet. 

I took no pictures. 

36 species

Canada Goose  5

Wood Duck  2    Pond on Hawkin

Mallard  1    Pond on Hawkin

Ring-necked Duck  12

Mourning Dove  1

Great Blue Heron  1

Turkey Vulture  6

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Belted Kingfisher  1

Red-headed Woodpecker  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  2

Downy Woodpecker  1

Hairy Woodpecker  1    Near parking lot

Northern Flicker  2

Blue Jay  5

Fish Crow  2

Carolina Chickadee  2    heard

Tree Swallow  1

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  3

White-breasted Nuthatch  2    Heard

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  8

Carolina Wren  1

European Starling  25

Hermit Thrush  1    Raising its rufous tail on Hawkin

American Robin  50

American Goldfinch  1    Heard

Chipping Sparrow  2

Field Sparrow  2    Heard

White-throated Sparrow  5

Eastern Towhee  2    Heard

Red-winged Blackbird  10

Common Yellowthroat  1    Heard

Palm Warbler  1

Pine Warbler  2

Yellow-rumped Warbler  2

Northern Cardinal  5

A Road in Pemberton Twp 4/17--Pileated Woodpecker, White-eyed Vireo, Purple Martin

No problem social distancing here

I've used up the local area over the last three weeks or so...the WMA behind the house, the streets of the village, the little pond, the drained pond, the power line cut..I've walked them left to right, right to left, north to south, south to north, east to west, west to--you get the picture. The problem is where to walk and social distance at the same time and yet not spend a lot of time driving. The solution seemed to me to be a road that I recently started to bird in Burlington County that I was told about by my friend at Whitesbog, who sadly I don't see anymore since Whitesbog is off-limits for the duration. I started going there in late March and each time I'd find something of interest along with getting in 4 miles of walking if took a little spur that goes to the Pemberton Bypass. (Forgive me if I'm a little cagey about the location; while I don't expect all 10 of you who read this blog to show up there when I'm there, word has a way of leaking out.)

Today I finally found the bird that brought me there in the first place. My informant told me that Pileated Woodpecker was found in the tall trees just off the road. "If you get to the pumping station, you've gone too far." The first few times I never saw one, but today, at that muddy area smack in the middle of the photo I heard what I assumed was a flicker until this gigantic woodpecker flew out with a red crown and white patches on its wings. An excellent year bird. And I heard the bird when I was looking at my first year bird of the day, a White-eyed Vireo in the bare branches of a tree on the opposite side of the power lines. The first thing I had heard before the "kuk-kuk-kuk" was some powerful drumming on a trunk.

The road continues through wetlands, past the pumping station, hooks around by the spur and continues into the Pemberton WMA (so I guess it really won't be hard for you to figure out where this is if you really want to). I saw a couple of big swallows as I neared water and thought they might be Purple Martins, which was confirmed once I got to the lake and saw them flying, big and dark, with about 20 Tree Swallows. So 3 year birds and then a Bald Eagle flew over--a month bird.

On my way back, at the same mud hole in the road, I heard again what I assumed was the Pileated; I played its call and almost immediately one flew out like a shot and crossed the road, landing, of course on the back side of a tree. Then another flew out and did the same maneuver. I never could find them to get a picture. Amazing how such a big bird with a red head can disappear in a stand of leafless trees.

Seeing the Pileated accomplished something I've never done before--I've seen all 7 of New Jersey's woodpeckers in one month (really, 17 days) and pretty much locally too. I know people have done it in one day, but these are difficult times.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

31 species

Canada Goose  21

Mourning Dove  4

Great Blue Heron  1

Black Vulture  1

Turkey Vulture  3

Bald Eagle  1    Flyover Pemberton Lake

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  3    Heard

Downy Woodpecker  1

Pileated Woodpecker  2

Eastern Phoebe  1

White-eyed Vireo  1

Blue Jay  1

American Crow  2    Heard

Fish Crow  2

Carolina Chickadee  3    Heard

Tufted Titmouse  4

Purple Martin  2    Flyover Pemberton Lake

Tree Swallow  20

White-breasted Nuthatch  2    Heard

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  4

Carolina Wren  3    Heard

European Starling  1

American Robin  1

White-throated Sparrow  2    Heard

Eastern Towhee  1    Heard

Red-winged Blackbird  3

Brown-headed Cowbird  6

Pine Warbler  2    Heard

Yellow-rumped Warbler  3

Northern Cardinal  2    Heard

Pornithology

The turkeys have been a constant presence the last month, especially one big Tom that has been strutting around, displaying, even in the middle of the street. He was back today, fanned out and all puffed up when a hen came scurrying by. She lay down in front of him. He got on top and started kneading her back with his feet. The rest is below in a video Shari made. 

Where to Bird?

Wranglebrook, deep in the woods

Never have I been so happy to have a WMA behind the house as I have been lately. With all state and county parks closed, along with the state forests and many other sites, I'm lucky that I can just walk out the door and get away from the headlines for a while, find some birds, get my steps in.

I see a lot of discussion as to whether this hot spot or that locale is open or not and if so, how crowded is it? My attitude is, if you have to ask, you shouldn't go there. In a way, closing almost everything is counter productive because it just concentrates the joggers, dog walkers, cyclists in the few remaining area, making it not only difficult to socially distance but it ruins the birding as well so as to make it pointless. And the idea is to keep you close to home.

Now I know some roads that I go to where it is unlikely I'll see a soul, but I'm not saying where they are. I may eventually get antsy enough that I'll want to walk there. For the last week or so I have alternated between the WMA and walking the streets of my development over to the power line cut that runs along one edge of it and back around to home. I would suggest power line cuts as a very good alternative to parks and trails. Birds love edges and the cuts have lots of edges, margins, and streams on either side. Lots of varying habitat. Just don't go on my power line cut.

As to the WMA, I have been exploring it more deeply than I ever have in 8+ years we've lived here. A few days ago I took a walk all the way up to Wranglebrook. This is a stream that starts in what I guess is the Crossley Preserve as something of a trickle and winds up behind an industrial park in South Toms River as a large pond-like body of water that is a tributary of the Toms River itself. A few years ago, I figured that if there was a Wranglebrook Road there must be a Wranglebrook itself and set out to find it. Once I did, I rarely went back. It has changed in the intervening years. Where once it was channeled through a culvert under the dirt road, that culvert has cracked and crumbled and now the stream, much more than the thin stream I remember in the summer, floods over the dirt road.

Then yesterday I took a route in the WMA that on a map looked plausible but that I had never done before. I walked a 4 mile loop from my house, past the the pond then, instead of making a right and walking toward the cul de sac on Congasia and turning around (which would be 2 miles out and 2 miles back, I kept going straight and walked on the dirt roads that are the continuations of Wranglebrook and Schoolhouse Road. It is all pine forest except for a few clearings. The clearings tend to produce the more interesting birds, like Field Sparrow, swallows or hunting raptors. Now that I know my way around (literally) I'm more inclined to investigate those bare squares on the map. But yesterday I did have, in one tree, Pine, Palm, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. You take what you can get under the circumstances. I have a life list of 95 species in the WMA, so eventually I will fill in the some of the lacunae on my year list; I keep hoping something really exciting will show up in some unexplored corner of the woods.

Everybody is getting restless. Shari is restless. I know I'm restless. I don't want to be a hypocrite and look askance at some of the lists I'm seeing and then go out and take a drive to Tuckerton, to finally see some shorebirds and terns and waders, but building up my year list in the midst of what Bernie Sanders so eloquently called "a fucking global catastrophe," isn't uppermost in my mind. Maintaining my sanity is and the only way I have ever found to do that is to walk. And walk. And walk. And maybe find a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in a tree where I thought I saw a titmouse.

Double Trouble 4/7--Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

I hadn't been to Double Trouble in months, since sometime last year, and, it looks, I'm not going to be birding there for months to come as the governor just closed down all state & county parks, as well as the state forests. Too bad, but no doubt necessary. I thought if I went there early enough I'd be able to avoid the dogwalkers and joggers and that was true up to a point--but as the morning progressed I found myself stepping to the side and turning my back more times than I felt comfortable.

Given the circumstances, my mission seemed silly: I wanted a new bird for the year. But then, given the circumstances, finding momentary relief in something so simple doesn't appear unreasonable at all. And I did find my bird--a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher along the trail coming back from Oar Pond. Along that little canal, around this time of year, Louisiana Waterthrush has been an annual visitor. I looked for it today and didn't find it. When it is there, I won't be. Nor will anyone else.

In addition to the waterthrush, I was thinking of all the birds that migration brings to the park, like the rare Yellow-throated Warbler, or nesting Hooded Warbler, or Summer Tanager, or the Acadian Flycatchers that you hear singing and sometimes catch a glimpse of. I was looking forward to driving the  9 miles to the park and walking around the bogs. Not going to happen this year. It's part of the price we pay to stay alive.

So I'm glad I had a decent day there--5 Great Egrets were a surprise, as were the two Palm Warblers I found. I was hoping for a yellowthroat or an early Ovenbird, but no such luck. Those birds I can find more locally though. And if I don't...

28 species

Canada Goose  4

Mute Swan  1    Oar Pond

Mallard  4    

Great Egret  5

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1

Downy Woodpecker   2

Northern Flicker  1

Eastern Phoebe  4

Blue Jay  2    Heard

Carolina Chickadee  2

Tufted Titmouse  1    Heard

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1

White-breasted Nuthatch  1    Heard

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1

Carolina Wren  3

American Robin  4

American Goldfinch  1    Heard

Chipping Sparrow  1

Field Sparrow  1    Heard near packing house. Ping pong ball

White-throated Sparrow  5

Song Sparrow  6

Swamp Sparrow  2    Separate areas. Clean breast rufous on wings

Eastern Towhee  2

Red-winged Blackbird  4

Brown-headed Cowbird  1    Heard

Palm Warbler  2

Pine Warbler  10

Northern Cardinal  2

Home 4/6--Eastern Whip-poor-will

This afternoon Shari & I were speculating when we might hear our first whip-poor-will. "Maybe the middle of the month," I said, "I'll have to look up when we've heard it." I didn't get around to checking my records in eBird. Doesn't matter. At 11:12 PM, as I was sitting in the living room reading, I noticed something pecking at my consciousness--with a start I called "Shari" and to assure her nothing was wrong, immediately added "Whip-poor-will!" She rushed into the room, her breath minty from being in the middle of brushing her teeth.

I opened the window. "Aah, it's already stopped," I said.

And then it sang again, from the one of the trees in the retention basin next to our house.

It is the happiest I have been in a month.



(And by the way, it beats the record by two days)

A Walk in Crestwood Village

A Waste of a Perfectly Good Mask

I didn't have any enthusiasm for birding today but late in the afternoon restlessness got the best of me, so Shari and I took a walk through the internment camp from our house up to the retention pond on Stonybrook and back. You can find a surprising amount of birds in this little village. We had two Tom turkeys, an adult displaying to an immature male, as if to say, "This is my village, buddy, clear off," and over at the pond on Stonybrook we were surprised to see 5 hen Hooded Mergansers. That pond has been empty of waterfowl the last few times we passed by, not even a Mallard has deigned to swim on it.

My email in box fills up with rare bird alerts or with alerts of birds I "need" for the year. I don't go running for them. There are few places I'm willing to go and whatever is there is there.

Mostly, I want to get the steps in; it's good for your heart, good for your blood sugar, and, eventually, the endorphins do kick in--at least until you read the headlines when you get back home.

19 species

Hooded Merganser  5    

Wild Turkey  2

Mourning Dove  4

Turkey Vulture  3

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Blue Jay  1    heard

American Crow  1

Fish Crow  3

Carolina Chickadee  2    heard

Tufted Titmouse  1    heard

Northern Mockingbird  2

Eastern Bluebird  1

American Robin  3

House Finch  5

Song Sparrow  6

Brown-headed Cowbird  2

Common Grackle  3

Pine Warbler  2  heard

Northern Cardinal  4  heard