Mercer Corporate Park 2/15--Greater White-fronted Goose

Greater White-fronted Goose (left), Mercer Corporate Park

Mercer Corporate Park in Robbinsville, like Marshall's Pond in Toms River, inexplicably attracts rare waterfowl to its two little ponds. It is about a 45 minute drive from here, so when I saw that a Greater White-fronted Goose had been spotted in among the Canada Geese I was out the door in 3 minutes and on my way.  The beauty of this chase is that, because the area is so small, I would know whether the bird was there almost immediately. No looking for flocks of geese on far-flung farm fields then sorting through thousands of lookalikes for the one rarity.

As soon as I pulled into the park I saw a Northern Harrier floating low over the brushy area. There was a small flock of geese in the first pond. From the car I scanned them with my binoculars and they all looked like Canada Geese. I brought out the scope, set it up on the edge of the pond (the geese were, of course, on the far shore) and started at the left. About halfway through the flock I saw the little brown goose with the orange bill and white face. Total time to find: under 3 minutes. That's the kind of chasing I like.

Digiscope of GWFG

I was able to get surprisingly decent photos from across the water. I was even able to digiscope a shot that more or less looks like a GWFG. Sometimes my hand is steady enough to do it, sometimes not. I haven't been able to find an attachment yet that fits both my phone and the scope.

Other birds that were there included a Great Blue Heron standing just at the water's edge and 5 Gadwalls in the 2nd, overgrown pond.

There is only one more rare goose or swan that comes to New Jersey that I haven't tracked down yet this year--Pink-footed Goose. I know where one is. I just have to get down there soon.

Cedar Run Dock Road 2/11--Short-eared Owl

Short-eared Owls, Cedar Run Dock Road

I'm cheating a little bit here. Technically, my first look at a Short-eared Owl came about an hour earlier at Mott's Creek flying in the distance over the marshes either in Ocean, Burlington, or Atlantic Counties, impossible to say exactly where. It was identified by Pete by shape and flight pattern. It was such a crappy, unsatisfying look that I was loathe to list it, but I did see what Pete was saying and I learn from the master.

We then drove up to Forsythe's section along Cedar Run Dock Road in West Creek, a location that historically has hosted Shorties, though, since Sandy, they have been scarce. However, their food supply of voles and mice, which presumably was drowned in the storm, has apparently recovered and with the recovery the owls have returned.

Last week, Shari & I drove down there to celebrate her birthday at a restaurant at the end of the road, overlooking the bay and, my ulterior motive, to look for owls. We ran into Pete & Mike there and some other friends. Bottom line: Everybody, Shari included, saw at least a couple of Short-eared Owls. Everybody but me. It was a typical directional instruction mishmash with landmarks like short cedar tree, flashing tower (all the towers are flashing!) humpy bush, etc. So this afternoon I was happy to return for a 2nd try.

We weren't there very long, scanning the west side of the road where they've been seen of late, before Pete found one on the east side of the road, of course. I had a lousy angle, sitting in the back of the car, so I bolted outside and was able to get really nice looks at the owl as it swooped around in its typical floppy flight pattern.

Then the owl must have realized it was on the wrong side of the road because it flew right in front of us to the west side. I didn't binoculars for this look as I could see every detail of its facial disk as it seemingly glanced at me from twenty feet away.

It was then joined by another owl (and another that I wasn't able to see) and they flew around the marsh as the gloaming set in. I was able to get the rather impressionistic photo above. If you click on the photo it will enlarge and probably become even more artistic than it is now, but you can see the two owls flying right. Right?

I was pretty much done for the day with the owl but we made one more stop, as I mentioned in the Brig post, at the Bridge to Nowhere (also a section of Forsythe) where we picked up Mike's FOY Rough-legged hawk. For the day I tallied 54 species, 4 of them year birds.

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. I could use the rest.

Brigantine Island 2/11--American Oystercatcher, Willet

Very distant American Oystercatchers, south cove,
Brigantine Island

Brig, as the birders call it, is short for Brigantine, since officially that section of the huge Forsythe NWR is called the Brigantine Unit, named for the nearby island just north of Atlantic City. It was there, after a quick stop at Absecon Creek, that we next headed. The cove can be a good spot in winter for shorebirds--there are sometimes large flocks of Marbled Godwits on the mud flats. There were no godwits there today, but we did find a number of American Oystercatchers in various spots on the southern part of the island, as well as a good flock of Willets of the western sub-species that winter on the east coast.

I was sorry Shari wasn't with us to see the oystercatchers, her favorite bird, but there is plenty of time left for her to see them and in more pleasant weather conditions. The willets are always good to get on the list in NJ as eventually they will be split from their eastern cousins (who are all way down south now) and I'll get an armchair bird. The rest of what we saw down there had already been viewed in the Brig impoundments.

Return to Brig 2/11--Rough-legged Hawk

A small portion of the Snow Geese on SW Pool

Snow Geese with 3 blue morphs

Snow Geese with Blue Goose morph

After many months of deprivation, the wildlife drive at Brig finally opened this morning. No balloons, no ribbon cutting, no brass bands, just an almost word of mouth announcement late yesterday afternoon that the whole 8 mile loop would be ready for traffic this morning.

Which would have been great had Mike known a little earlier, since he cancelled the Brig trip he had scheduled, under the impression that the whole drive, including the short portion we'd been using for the last few months, was still closed for the laying on of crushed concrete onto the road surface.

He, Pete, & I had planned a birding day starting at Barnegat Bay in Brick, where there is a huge raft of Redheads present. A couple of Redheads in New Jersey is always a notable bird. But these numbers--today the conservative estimate was 150, nowhere near the 240 Pete counted last week--are ridiculous. The counts people have been getting the last week or so are probably unprecedented in modern NJ birding history.

However, instead of heading north afterwards, as we had originally planned, we instead went to Brig where we met up with Hank Burk, who hadn't heard about the cancellation. We had a grand time circling the impoundments twice. The road was nicely "paved" in crushed concrete, crushed finer than I had imagined it would be, and a couple of the water control structures had been rebuilt, so now that we know they can control the water, we can criticize how they control the water.

There were huge flocks of Snow Geese spread around the refuge and most of the duck species were well represented,  but the real excitement took place in  flurry of activity at the Gull Pond. Pete found a distant dark, large raptor with a dihedral (eliminating eagle) hovering over the tree line at the same time that Mike called out Orange-crowned Warbler in the trees around the parking area. I was lucky enough to find the raptor and get a decent look at it since Pete quickly identified it as a Rough-legged Hawk, then was able to turn around and with some help (all I had to do was interpret which bend in the tree Hank was talking about) got on the warbler. Mike, unfortunately, never got on the hawk (no good deed goes unpunished); it wasn't until late in the day, at the Bridge to Nowhere that he made up the deficit when Pete spotted another one just as we were leaving. I, too, was happy to see this big hawk as it made my YTD count in Ocean County 110, vaulting me, temporarily I'm sure, into the county lead on eBird.

The only disappointment for the day, a very minor quibble since we all have the bird for the year, was that we missed the reported Eurasian Wigeon that was on the north dike before the dogleg. But just to be able to search for a bird at the dogleg was a great pleasure for all of us.

For the two trips around I wound up with 44 species:
Snow Goose 2500 conservative estimate
Brant 500 Conservative estimate
Canada Goose 39
Mute Swan 8
Tundra Swan 21
Gadwall 30
American Wigeon 12
American Black Duck 1000
Mallard 75
Northern Shoveler 5
Northern Pintail 100
Ring-necked Duck 2 Gull Pond
Greater Scaup 100 Turtle Cove
Lesser Scaup 1 Gull Pond
Bufflehead 8
Hooded Merganser 20
Common Merganser 20
Great Blue Heron 2
Turkey Vulture 1
Northern Harrier 4
Bald Eagle 4
Red-tailed Hawk 3
Rough-legged Hawk 1
Ring-billed Gull 6
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Heard
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Peregrine Falcon 2
Blue Jay 2 Heard
American Crow 3
Carolina Chickadee 5
Tufted Titmouse 2
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Bluebird 1
American Robin 115
Cedar Waxwing 10
Orange-crowned Warbler 1 Continuing at Gull Pond.
Song Sparrow 2
Red-winged Blackbird 5
American Goldfinch 2

Manasquan Inlet 2/6--Razorbill

Razorbill
Photo: Peggy Cadigan

I was standing at the grassy edge of Lake of the Lilies in Point Pleasant Beach, counting coots, when my friend Peggy Cadigan pulled up. Yesterday, I had noticed, she found a Razorbill off the jetty at the Manasquan Inlet and it was in my mind to take a look to see if it (or another very much like it) would still be there. She was also heading that way, so after adding American Coot and Lesser Scaup to my Ocean County list, I met her at the end of the jetty. You don't get many alcids from shore in New Jersey, despite the Dovekie that some lucky birder found off the jetty at Barnegat Light yesterday, so it's always worth a look. But there is a lot of ocean you can see from the jetty and I wasn't really that hopeful. We were chatting about past Razorbills we'd seen at the inlet and some of them had been very cooperative and near while I scanned the water with the scope. I was just doing a slow sweep through scattered gulls and loons when, boing! "And there it is," I said.

Just dumb luck. Now the trick was to get Peggy on it which was a little difficult since the bird must get frequent diver points. Every time Peggy looked in my scope the all she saw was blue water. Finally, after about 5 tries the bird stayed up long enough for her to get a shot with her camera, for which I am very grateful as mine doesn't have the power or the fast-focusing ability to make getting a doc shot possible. Peggy also took a photo of a Horned Grebe that I missed. I stayed for about 20 minutes after she left, but never did find it. A lot of ocean out there.

End of the jetty, Manasquan Inlet

For my 50 minutes of standing there in surprisingly pleasant winter weather (it is Point Pleasant after all) I had 10 species:

Brant  50
American Black Duck  1
Long-tailed Duck  8     most close to jetty
Red-breasted Merganser  1     Far jetty
Common Loon  10     Ocean and inlet
Purple Sandpiper  3
Razorbill  1
Ring-billed Gull  1
Herring Gull  25
Great Black-backed Gull  1

3 County Birding 2/3--Cackling Goose, Lesser Scaup, Common Raven

Lesser Scaup, hen & drake, Manasquan Reservoir

Mike & I spent the day chasing down new birds for our year lists, mostly along the I-195 corridor, starting off 7:30 this morning at Manasquan Reservoir. We were hoping to add to Orange-crowned Warbler to his list but it proved elusive. However, the reservoir was mostly open with a good mix of ducks and we each added some species there--Common Merganser for Mike, Lesser Scaup for the both of us, as well as a flyover Common Raven (Mike actually saw two.) Common Raven is still considered rare in central Jersey, but they're around often enough so that it isn't a huge surprise to see one.

Then we headed west to Assunpink where we searched the lake for Trumpeter Swan. I saw an immature one there last month and then it seemed to disappear for a few weeks, only to return, slightly less gray than before. However, our first scan of the lake only turned up two Mute Swans near the far shore. We then drove east, following the road that hugs the shore and found lots of waterfowl and raptors, but no Trumpeter. When we saw that the east end of the lake was frozen, I said to Mike that perhaps we should look at those Mute Swans a little more closely. We turned around, and found what looked like only one swan, still on the far shore. But it looked like one was hiding behind it. So we drove around to the other side of the lake, put down our scopes and, behold, there were two swans and yes, one of them was a mute, but the other with the gray neck and molting feathers was the Trumpeter. To quote Yogi Berra: You can observe a lot by looking.

Then we started a wild goose chase. We stopped at the Mercer Corporate Park, famous in song and legend for the rarities it attracts to its two retaining ponds. Cackling Goose had been reported there as recently as yesterday. Cacklers are notoriously hard birds to pin down, especially since there are 3 sub-species of them, each a slightly different size and shape. We looked, but nothing jumped out at us that said "I'm your goose."

Pine Warbler, Trenton Sewer Utility

On to the Poo Ponds (Trenton Sewer Utility) which, for the first time in my many visits, actually smelled like what they are. Still, the trees along the ramp to the highway still attract an amazing variety of birds for winter, especially warblers. We had at least 5 Pine Warblers (again, supposedly rare), as well as Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers, but, still, no Orange-crowned Warbler, hearing those dreaded words from a couple of birder friends we met there--"Oh, we just had it 5 minutes ago."

Back to the corporate park where we still found no cackler but did come up with a Merlin. East to Allentown we continued, to Corinne's Millpond where we once again met our friends scoping out the 2000 Canada Geese on the pond. They claimed a cackler was in the midst of the flock, which was continually enlarging as more geese dropped out of the sky. I started on the left with my scope and started to scan, without much hope, though finding some nice ducks along the way proved a distraction.

A very small portion of the flock of Canada Geese in which there is one Cackling Goose.

However, Mike's more discerning eye finally picked the needle out of the haystack. I looked through his scope, saw the small bird with its distinctively stubbier bill and because of the different slope of the bill, squarish head. Of all the rare geese that show up in NJ, Cackling Goose, to me, is the least exciting. And how come you never see any of them banded?

We made a couple of sweeps around the sod farms looking for Snow Geese with no luck, stopped in at Prospertown Lake which has for reasons unknown become a birding desert (a wet desert?) and then, now that we were back in Ocean County, took a ride through Colliers Mills where the most interesting bird, to me, was Brown Creeper, one of my favorites.

When started off this morning we guessed we might find 50 species for the day. We met and exceeded our goal--I listed 60 species without bothering with some pigeons, starlings and the like.
1 Cackling Goose
2260 Canada Goose 
1 Mute Swan
1 Trumpeter Swan 
16 American Black Duck 
125 Mallard 
3 Northern Pintail 
1 Canvasback
46 Ring-necked Duck 
6 Lesser Scaup 
7 Bufflehead 
4 Hooded Merganser 
54 Common Merganser 
30 Ruddy Duck 
4 Common Loon
10 Pied-billed Grebe
5 Great Blue Heron 
6 Turkey Vulture 
1 Northern Harrier
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk 
1 Cooper's Hawk 
1 Bald Eagle 
1 Red-shouldered Hawk 
5 Red-tailed Hawk 
100 American Coot 
5 Ring-billed Gull 
2 Herring Gull 
12 Mourning Dove
2 Belted Kingfisher 
2 Red-bellied Woodpecker 
3 Downy Woodpecker 
1 Hairy Woodpecker 
1 Northern Flicker
1 Merlin 
2 Blue Jay
1 American Crow 
1 Fish Crow 
1 Common Raven 
8 Carolina Chickadee 
9 Tufted Titmouse 
5 Red-breasted Nuthatch 
3 White-breasted Nuthatch 
1 Brown Creeper
3 Carolina Wren
5 Golden-crowned Kinglet
2 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 
1 Eastern Bluebird
2 Palm Warbler
5 Pine Warbler
5 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 American Tree Sparrow 
22 Dark-eyed Junco
23 White-throated Sparrow 
2 Song Sparrow
4 Northern Cardinal
151 Red-winged Blackbird 
2 Common Grackle
4 House Finch 
6 American Goldfinch 
1 House Sparrow 

January: 10 Rarities

Ross's Goose, Deerhead Lake

I birded almost every day this month. The weather, aside from a brief cold snap, was kind. I probably picked up close to 40% of the birds I'll see in New Jersey this year in the first month. That's not an accomplishment. I did, however, see 10 rarities, for New Jersey, this month, and 40% of those rarities were white: American White Pelican on the first day of the year, the Ross's Goose I found at Deerhead Lake, a Trumpeter Swan at Assunpink (a pretty dingy white, but nonetheless white) and the Snowy Owl on Holgate. I'm not even counting the Pine Warblers at the Trenton Sewer Utility (the "poo ponds" as I have heard them called) as rarities because those birds are more prevalent than eBird allows.

I started the month at Tip Seaman Park in Tuckerton where the pelican carried over from the last day of December and ended the month there, sorting through the Canada Goose flock hoping for a rare goose that has made a couple of brief appearances in the county--Pink-footed Goose. There's a very easy PFGO in Cape May, but local birds are so much more satisfying. While looking through the flock I found one goose that was banded. I noticed that the flock, like many of the goose flocks in winter, had two distinct types of Canada Geese--the ones like the banded goose are very big with thick necks, while the other geese, which I presume are local and don't migrate, are probably a little smaller overall, but their necks are distinctly thinner. I reported the goose to the USGS and mentioned that they might want to find a way to differentiate between the characters "zero" and "O" in their typography. I'm ever the printer.

The year is off to an excellent start. I was a little concerned in December when I felt my birding spirits flagging, but the prospect of finding new birds for the year seems to have revived them. I've been thinking that the listing part of birding, at least, is similar to collecting baseball cards--every pack (read day) had the potential for a great card (bird). The Pink-footed Goose would be a Mickey Mantle in my day. The European Starling is Choo-choo Coleman.

I ended the month with 122 species (96 in Ocean County). They were:

Species             First Sighting

Snow Goose   Colliers Mills WMA

Ross's Goose   Deer Head Lake

Brant   Cape May Harbor

Barnacle Goose   Etra Lake

Canada Goose   35 Sunset Rd

Mute Swan   Tip Seaman CP

Trumpeter Swan   Assunpink WMA

Tundra Swan   Cape May Meadows

Wood Duck   Cranberry Bogs--Dover Rd

Gadwall   Cape May Point SP

Eurasian Wigeon   Shark River

American Wigeon   Cape May Point SP

American Black Duck   Cape May Point SP

Mallard   Cape May Point SP

Northern Shoveler   Cape May Point SP

Northern Pintail   Cape May Point SP

Green-winged Teal   Lily Lake

Canvasback   Riverfront Landing

Redhead   Silver Lake

Ring-necked Duck   Lily Lake

Greater Scaup   CMBO Northwood Center

King Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Common Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Surf Scoter   Two Mile Beach

Black Scoter   Cape May Meadows

Long-tailed Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Bufflehead   Lily Lake

Common Goldeneye   Harvey Cedars

Hooded Merganser   Cape May Point SP

Common Merganser   Manasquan Reservoir IBA

Red-breasted Merganser   Cape May Harbor

Ruddy Duck   Cattus Island County Park

Wild Turkey   Assunpink WMA

Red-throated Loon   Coral Ave. dune crossing

Common Loon   Cape May Harbor

Pied-billed Grebe   Manasquan Reservoir IBA

Horned Grebe   Sunset Lake

Red-necked Grebe   Sunset Lake

Northern Gannet   Coral Ave. dune crossing

Great Cormorant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Double-crested Cormorant   Cape May Point SP

American White Pelican   Tip Seaman CP

Great Blue Heron   Cape May Point SP

Great Egret   Cape May Point SP

Black-crowned Night-Heron   Lake Como

Black Vulture   Lake Barnegat

Turkey Vulture   Tip Seaman CP

Northern Harrier   Assunpink WMA

Sharp-shinned Hawk   Assunpink WMA

Cooper's Hawk   Lily Lake

Bald Eagle   GSP MM 48

Red-shouldered Hawk   Cape May Point SP

Red-tailed Hawk   Colliers Mills WMA

American Coot   Cape May Point SP

Black-bellied Plover   Holgate

Killdeer   White's Bogs

Ruddy Turnstone   Coral Ave. dune crossing

Sanderling   Coral Ave. dune crossing

Dunlin   Two Mile Beach

Purple Sandpiper   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Bonaparte's Gull   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Ring-billed Gull   Cape May Point SP

Herring Gull   Tip Seaman CP

Lesser Black-backed Gull   Manasquan Inlet

Great Black-backed Gull   Cape May Meadows

Rock Pigeon   Cape May Point SP

Mourning Dove   35 Sunset Rd

Great Horned Owl   35 Sunset Rd

Snowy Owl   Holgate

Belted Kingfisher   Eno’s Pond

Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA

Red-bellied Woodpecker   CMBO Northwood Center

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Assunpink WMA

Downy Woodpecker   CMBO Northwood Center

Hairy Woodpecker   Assunpink WMA

Northern Flicker   Cape May Point SP

American Kestrel   Bridge to Nowhere

Merlin   Tuckerton--Great Bay Bvld. WMA

Peregrine Falcon   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Blue Jay   Cape May Point SP

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Fish Crow   Colliers Mills WMA

Tree Swallow   Cape May Meadows

Carolina Chickadee   Cape May Point SP

Tufted Titmouse   CMBO Northwood Center

Red-breasted Nuthatch   Harvard Ave

White-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd

Brown Creeper   Assunpink WMA

Carolina Wren   Cape May Point SP

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Whiting WMA

Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Assunpink WMA

Eastern Bluebird   Cattus Island County Park

Hermit Thrush   Crestwood Village

American Robin   Coral Ave. dune crossing

Gray Catbird   Cape May Point SP

Northern Mockingbird   Cape May Pt SP

European Starling   Cape May Point SP

Cedar Waxwing   Cape May Hawkwatch Platform

Orange-crowned Warbler   Manasquan Reservoir IBA

Palm Warbler   Cattus Island County Park

Pine Warbler   Trenton Sewage Ponds

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Cape May Point SP

Yellow-breasted Chat   Cape May Point SP

American Tree Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

Field Sparrow   Marshall's Pond

Fox Sparrow   CMBO Northwood Center

Dark-eyed Junco   35 Sunset Rd

White-crowned Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

White-throated Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

Savannah Sparrow   Cattus Island County Park

Song Sparrow   Cape May Point SP

Swamp Sparrow   Cattus Island County Park

Northern Cardinal   Cape May Point SP

Dickcissel   Assunpink WMA

Red-winged Blackbird   Cape May Point SP

Common Grackle   Coral Ave. dune crossing

Boat-tailed Grackle   Great Bay Bvld. WMA

Brown-headed Cowbird   Coral Ave. dune crossing

House Finch   35 Sunset Rd

American Goldfinch   35 Sunset Rd

House Sparrow   Lehigh Ave

Some birds in flight:

Snow Geese over Colliers Mills

Tundra Swans over the cranberry bogs in South Toms River