Assunpink WMA 1/12--Snow Goose, Common Merganser, Brown Creeper, Eastern Bluebird, Sparrows, Icterids

The weather finally permitted us to go on field trip this morning. We birded Assunpink in Monmouth County with Scott & Linda and while the conditions were not quite as pleasant as predicted, we still managed to find some interesting birds, starting at the lake where there were about a dozen Common Mergansers. There was some open water on the lake, not as much as you'd like, so only a smattering of ducks and a mixed flock of gulls.

We drove back down Imlaystown Road to a farm's driveway just outside the confines of the WMA and there, reliably, was a small flock of White-crowned Sparrows. It is a mystery to me why this driveway consistently hosts these sparrows. It is just one of those hot spots you check off: White-crowned Sparrows? Driveway on Imlaystown Road. Also in the farm fields (sheep & horses) were a couple of species we can't count--a Ring-necked Pheasant (stocked) and Helmeted Guineafowl (pets), as well as birds that some people don't want to count like starlings and a Brown-headed Cowbird. I, putting aside their detrimental natures, happen to like these birds for how they look; starlings in winter are gorgeously speckled and cowbirds have good looking hoods. I also like the way cowbirds "sing" in spring; they sound like a water faucet dripping into a full basin.

A walk up through and around the navigation beacon field turned up a couple of new sparrows, but unfortunately, they were only heard by most of the party. Fox Sparrows were very shy and afforded only glimpses of their backs to me, and the towhee was clearly heard but only partially seen as it flew across the path. I did see perfectly one of my favorites, a Brown Creeper crawling up a cedar. Twice today I missed Savannah Sparrow. Not a rarity, as the towhee is this time of year, but still one I'd like to get.

The birds I did get today totaled 42 with 9 FOY, bringing my count up to 95.
Snow Goose  50    flyovers
Canada Goose  150
Mallard  4    Lake
Ring-necked Duck  9
Lesser Scaup  6
Common Merganser  12
Ruddy Duck  1
Great Blue Heron  1
Black Vulture  5
Turkey Vulture  6
Northern Harrier  3
Cooper's Hawk  1    Beacon field
Red-tailed Hawk  4
Ring-billed Gull  75
Herring Gull  5
Great Black-backed Gull  2    Lake
Rock Pigeon  5
Mourning Dove  3
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Downy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  2    Heard
American Crow  3
Carolina Chickadee  2    Heard
Tufted Titmouse  3
White-breasted Nuthatch  1    Heard
Brown Creeper  2
Carolina Wren  2    Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet  2
Eastern Bluebird  2
European Starling  100
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Eastern Towhee  1    Heard in Norway Spruce grove, clearly, "chwink."
Fox Sparrow  1    Heard. There were many more, but I didn't see them clearly.
Song Sparrow  2
White-throated Sparrow  5
White-crowned Sparrow  10    
Dark-eyed Junco  2
Northern Cardinal  4
Red-winged Blackbird  20
Common Grackle  20
Brown-headed Cowbird  1    
American Goldfinch  1    Heard

Crestwood Village 1/11--Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Last weekend record low temperatures cancelled two field trips. Today, record high temperatures, great--but a soaking rain prevents us from going on today's field trip. That's three in a row. Tomorrow's field trip still looks likely.

A brief, very brief, pause in the rain this morning sent me out the door to get my walk in. I traipsed through the WMA for the first time this year and found next to nothing except for scads of juncos. When I got to the pond it started to drizzle, so I turned around and walked back through the streets of Crestwood Village. The rain abated so I detoured and looked at the pond on Stonybrook. I was hoping for some ducks but it was empty. A few birds were flitting through the trees so I walked along to see what was there--chickadees mostly, but then I saw a very small bird in the underbrush--a kinglet. My first reaction was Golden-crowned, as they're the most common 'round here but once I focused my bins on it I saw the huge (for such a small bird) saucer-like eye and knew I had my first Ruby-crowned Kinglet of the year. As if to confirm the i.d., it flashed the eponymous patch. Then it started to rain again.

Meanwhile, in our backyard, the Pine Warblers continue and continue to try to eat peanut butter on the fly. However, today I saw the male perched on the cracked seed feeder, maybe looking for easier pickings, or perhaps, as someone suggested, there are little bugs in the seed for it to eat.

Great Bay Blvd 1/9—Red-breasted Merganser, Black-bellied Plover, Killdeer, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Common Grackle, + Ring-necked Pheasant on the Road.

Great Bay Blvd WMA from new bulkhead area

I drove down to Great Bay Blvd this morning even though the temperature was way below freezing because I just had to get out of the house and see some birds other than my feeder reliables. I was surprised, although I guess I shouldn't have been, to see the brackish creeks that run through the marshes frozen. Even Tuckerton Cove was iced up stretching far away from the beach. It was until a few hundred feet out that I saw open water and a large flock of Hooded Mergansers, probably forced there because all the ponds in the vicinity are frozen solid.

Great Bay Inlet

There really wasn't much to see along the 5 mile stretch of road down to the inlet with all the marshes iced up. Once I walked out to the inlet I started picking up some new birds for the year and county, like the flock of Red-breasted Mergansers and a lone Killdeer picking at the wrack line. It was low tide when I got there, so there were a lot of Dunlins, a couple of turnstones, and lots of gulls, including my FOY Lesser Black-backed Gull standing on a sandbar to the east. Scattered among the noisy flock of Boat-tailed Grackles were a 20 or so Common Grackles, the size difference being pretty obvious.

I took my mile walk from the inlet to the last bridge and back and all I found were about a dozen Yellow-rumped Warblers. I like to go back to the inlet for a 2nd look; I almost always find something new and this time the new bird for the day (and year) was a Black-bellied Plover with a some kind of sand worm in its mouth.

However, the bird that got me most excited today was found on the way down to Tuckerton. On Rt 539, just south of Warren Grove, on the shoulder between the road and the pygmy pines, I saw a Ring-necked Pheasant. I don't think Stafford Forge WMA is stocked. I haven't seen a legit pheasant in more than a year; it was free-ranging and wild--I'm counting it.

Today's list:
20 species
Brant  50
Canada Goose  12
Bufflehead  2    Inlet
Hooded Merganser  31
Red-breasted Merganser  12 
Ring-necked Pheasant   1  South of Warren Grove
Great Blue Heron  1
Northern Harrier  1
Black-bellied Plover  1
Killdeer  1
Ruddy Turnstone  2
Dunlin  30
Ring-billed Gull  25
Herring Gull  200
Lesser Black-backed Gull  1
Great Black-backed Gull  1
Mourning Dove  5
Yellow-rumped Warbler  15
Common Grackle  10
Boat-tailed Grackle  100

Great Bay Blvd WMA: former Coast Guard Station, now Rutgers research facility

New Egypt 1/8--Black Vulture

I took a quick drive out to New Egypt (of lapwing fame)this morning, hoping for Sandhill Cranes and perhaps some other interesting birds that have been reported out there of late, like Horned Lark or pheasants and came up completely empty, save for some Black Vultures I saw flying over the fields. I should have had these vultures in Cape May but I couldn't locate them in the kettles of Turkey Vultures we saw. I was pleased that I was able to i.d. these birds by shape and flight today. Only later did I see the diagnostic white wing patches.

The weather remained frigid today--zero when I woke up this morning. The fields were frozen, so there weren't even Killdeer picking at the ground. I wasn't that cold, scanning the fields, but I wasn't inclined to test how long it would take for me to start freezing.  Tuesday is the anniversary of our finding the lapwings and I said to Shari today that we should make a journey out there that day just to see if magic happens twice.

Meanwhile, our Pine Warbler rarities continue. They like the peanut butter, but somehow haven't figured out that they aren't hummingbirds and that it would be more efficient to actually land on the pine cone, rather than hover and pick at it. The Carolina Wrens have figured it out.

Action shot

Riverfront Landing 1/6--American Black Duck

After dropping Shari off at the bus station, I took a quick look at the nearby Toms River waterfront, where Canvasbacks are reliable, but not today. Large, unwieldy boats with booms and float were spread out on the water, doing what I don't know, but obviously they discouraged most of the ducks. There were a couple of hundred Mallards in among the marina boats and in among those Mallards were a few Ruddy Ducks and my FOY American Black Duck. Then it started to rain, again, and I headed home.

Now the "Arctic Vortex" is heading our way, so it will be back to monitoring the feeders. I hate winter.
I did a quick analysis of my Feederwatch statistics so far this year to a comparable period last year and found that birds at our feeders are down 21 1/2% so far. No easy explanation presents itself. However, our two rarities, Pine Warblers, keep hanging around, attracted to peanut butter and surprisingly, today, I saw the male at the black oil sunflower seed feeder.

Let me know when you're sick of looking at Pine Warbler photos. I'm glad to have them around, breaking up the monotony of the all the little black and gray birds in the yard.

Pine Warbler Male

Pine Warbler, probable first year female

A Walk in the Woods 1/5--Hermit Thrush

Another field trip was cancelled today due to inclement weather so I thought it was going to be yet another day of just monitoring the feeders. But, not surprisingly, the weather reports leaned a bit to they hyperbole side and the freezing rain that was going to turn all the roads into sheets of ice lasted about 10 minutes.

When the sun came out, I took a walk through the streets of Crestwood Village and on Congasia, veered into the woods to see how walkable the trails were. They were quite easy to walk since trucks have been back there and I just ambled along in their compacted tire tracks. The only birds I saw of any interest in there were lots of Golden-crowned Kinglets. I checked the pond of the WMA which is about 75% frozen over and there were no ducks or geese on it. It looked like the birding was going to be pretty boring today, but I continued on to the Crossley Preserve property and just as I was exiting at Congasia I saw my new bird for the year, a Hermit Thrush eating berries off a bush.

My friend Susan, who lives in the Berkshires (where winter is winter) took a walk in her woods the other day and posted some beautiful shots.  I can't match hers, but here's where I saw the thrush, at the entrance (or exit) of the Crossley Preserve, at the cul-de-sac on Congasia.

Schoolhouse Road 1/4--Golden-crowned Kinglet

We were supposed to go on a field trip to look for waterfowl in Monmouth County this morning but when we arose the temperature here in Whiting was minus 7. Aside from the hypothermia threat, what birds were we going to see when all the water is frozen? We decided not to go.

I spent the morning monitoring the feeders. Amazing how hardy these winter birds are, flitting around on the snow picking off seeds. Our over-wintering Pine Warblers made another appearance at the suet feeder and I was able to get one good photo. Bright male on the left, the first year female (probably) split by the icicle on the right.

By mid-afternoon the temperature had reached a sub-tropical 29 degrees and I could bear being house-bound no longer so I took a walk through the village over to the power line cut off Schoolhouse Road. Right before I reached entrance, in a field with a few bare trees, I saw some activity and heard the familiar buzz of Golden-crowned Kinglets.  I managed to pish a couple into sight after they had dived into a tangle. They're the only FOY I got today.

I've found that the tops of the power line towers are very reliable for Red-tailed Hawks and today there was one on the first tower off the road.

They're very skittish, considering how high up they are. I approached 10 more steps and it flew off.