Island Beach SP 3/20--Piping Plover, Northern Gannet

Because I didn't really feel like walking the beach at the southern end of Island Beach SP, I made a deal with myself: as soon as I saw the birds I was looking for, I would turn around. If I saw them after 50 feet, turn around. But if I had to walk all the way to jetty, I would. Of course, I could slog through the mile or so of sand down to the jetty and still not see my birds, but that's what makes it fun, right? 

The sea was rough and the water was coming up almost to the dunes, so in some places it was hard going and in some places the sand was like cement--the problem being that the soft stuff and hard stuff were almost indistinguishable. There wasn't much bird activity along the way--even the gulls were scarce.  I'd seen a few Long-tailed Ducks in the surf and a couple of Great Black-backed Gulls on the beach after about a 3/4 of a mile when in front of me, in a tire track, I saw two little sand-colored shorebirds scurrying away from me. "Please don't be Sanderlings," I said, and put my scope on them. Yes, what I'd come for, Piping Plovers. Steve thinks they're harbingers of spring and since today is the equinox, maybe they are. 

It seems to me that only recently have Piping Plovers made their way north over the inlet to Island Beach--Barnegat Light was the spot you had to go to find them, walking along the stringed off alley that the beach wardens would create to protest their nests. Now they seem to have discovered Island Beach, much to the chagrin of fishermen because at Island Beach they close off an entire section to protect the nesting birds. 

I also thought it was interesting that there were no bands that I could see on these two birds. They're so threatened that I thought every bird was tracked but these two rogues escaped surveillance, so far. 

I was good to my word to myself, even though I was pretty close to the jetty. Instead, I stood there for a while and scanned the ocean, getting a bonus species when 3 Northern Gannets flew north, low over the water. One of my favorite bird activities to watch is gannets plunge diving into the ocean, but these birds weren't hunting, they were traveling. 

I spent the rest of the morning at various spots in the park, looking to fill the lacunae in my list with land birds I have missed so far and didn't find a one. I knew from looking at list the few days that there weren't many birds being found, but still, when you can't find them, you can't help but feel you're doing something wrong. 

Cranberry Bogs 3/10--Eastern Phoebe, Tree Swallow

Tree Swallow

Go looking for one bird, find a different one...and then find the bird you were looking for. That's a decent day in the field even if both birds fall into the "gimme" category. I went to the abandoned Cranberry Bogs in South Toms River this morning, which started out foggy but soon cleared to be a precursor of springtime. At the top of the big hill around the sand pit I came across a nice little flock of tweety birds including a Red-breasted Nuthatch, which I hadn't seen for a while, and a Brown Creeper more visible than usual as the sun was shining directly on the tree it was walking up on.  I thought that bode well for the rest of the morning, but I didn't find any other passerines of note for quite a while. 

Ducks were still abundant--I counted 123 Ring-necked Ducks in 3 different bodies of water which broke the eBird filter, but in March the Ring-necks seem to gather in big flocks before moving north. 5 years ago to the day, I counted 665 Ring-necks on Turnmill Lake at Colliers Mills, so this could be considered a small gathering. Besides Mallards and black ducks, I also had 3 Wood Ducks (including a pair in appropriate habitat), some Hooded Mergansers, 7 Green-winged Teal that made a touch and go, and a couple of Buffleheads. 

Tree Swallow house, 2016

Superstitiously, I stopped at the shell of a pumphouse where I often find my day's target bird as they like to nest there, but it wasn't around. Not until I had walked almost to the far end of the large reservoir did I get my first year bird and not the one I was looking for--a single Tree Swallow perched on a dead tree in the middle of the water. Earlier, on the bogs, with a cloud of midges around my face, I was thinking that this would be a good time for swallows to show up. Years ago, when these were working bogs, somebody had put up two large swallow houses in the middle of that large reservoir and dozens of swallows would nest in them, but time and storms eventually destroyed them both. 

Eastern Phoebe on old pumphouse 2016

Walking back, I decided to take a path that is totally overgrown and that I probably won't walk on again until the winter since in warm weather it is tick-infested to the nth degree. But on that trail is another old pumphouse skeleton and I wanted to look at for the bird I'd originally set out for.  Again, not there, but I did see the Green-winged Teal in an impoundment along the way. And as I was watching them fly off, I heard it--the pissed-off FEE-BEE! "song" of the Eastern Phoebe, the bird I was seeking. It was somewhere off to my right but just then the grassy trail became a flooded one, and by the time I sloshed to the spot where I thought it was "singing" it was gone. I know I'll see plenty of others, but the first one is the most gratifying. 

For the morning 28 species:

Canada Goose  150
Wood Duck  3
Mallard  15
American Black Duck  6     Bogs
Green-winged Teal  7     Landed in bog for less than a minute then flew off. All drakes
Ring-necked Duck  123     Exact count. 83,12,28 in bogs and large reservoir
Bufflehead  2
Hooded Merganser  6
Mourning Dove  2
Killdeer  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Northern Flicker  3
Eastern Phoebe  1
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  1
Common Raven  1     Croaking
Carolina Chickadee  11
Tufted Titmouse  2
Tree Swallow  1
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1     Big hill
Brown Creeper  1     Big hill
Eastern Bluebird  2
House Finch  5
Song Sparrow  7
Red-winged Blackbird  50
Pine Warbler  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Northern Cardinal  4

Whitesbog | Backyard 3/9--Wild Turkey, Pine Warbler

Now that we are almost a third of the way through March, I have been getting a little antsy to get some of the "gimme" birds onto my year list. Today, a couple of species added themselves to list. 

For unpleasant reasons, I had to spend the last 3 days in Browns Mills, so in the mornings I've been going to Whitesbog. Yesterday, once the fog lifted, I saw two grebes in the Middle Bog, which I at first assumed were Pied-billed Grebes, not an especially unusual species for the bogs, but always a happy sighting. Except something about them didn't look right in the gray light. When I drove back, I stopped, broke out the scope and after scanning through a small flock of Hooded Mergansers I relocated the two grebes which turned out to be, as I suspected, Horned Grebes. I was pretty certain those were the first Horned Grebes I'd seen at Whitesbog and checking later, I found I was correct. What I didn't realize was that they were the first Horned Grebes for my Burlington County list which wasn't that surprising when I thought about it, since I rarely go anywhere in the county where you might encounter them, like the Delaware River. 

Today, to change it up, I decided to walk the Ocean County section. There were lots of migrating geese and some ducks in the various flooded and abandoned blueberry fields, including a couple of Lesser Scaup, which are scarce there. But it wasn't until I was on the return leg that I got my first year bird. Scott has often said how superstitious birders are--if you saw a great bird one spot, then you'll always look in that spot again, no matter how unlikely it is for history to repeat. Today, as I was walking toward the main road, I stopped and decided to walk on a grassy trail that that runs behind a field--a couple of years ago I had come across a Great Horned Owl in there at mid-day, so who knows, maybe there would be another. Of course, there wasn't, but I did hear, and eventually track down, my first Pine Warbler of the year. So the superstition pays off. Normally, in the winter, we have Pine Warblers at our suet, but this has not been a normal winter and only Yellow-rumps (and--much more exciting--an Orange-Crowned Warbler) have been nibbling away at the fatty cakes. 

This afternoon, as I was going outside to check on more tree damage from the blizzard, I saw a big blur dash behind the house--rounding the corner I saw it was my first Wild Turkey of the year, another bird that usually doesn't take this long to appear. I thought it was just the single tom, but when I went out to the brushy area beyond our lawn I saw there was an entire flock out there--Shari & I eventually counted 26 on our lawn, attracted, no doubt by all the seed I flung out there. Where the turkeys have been hiding out all winter I don't know, but driving back from an errand late this afternoon, I saw a couple more a few blocks away, so soon they'll be stopping traffic and antagonizing dogs. Which passes for entertainment on Sunset Road. 

February Wrap-up--Blizzard Edition

Tundra Swans walking on the ice of Union Pond, Whitesbog

The icy aftermath of the storm at the end of the January and the Blizzard of 2026 at the end of this month served to put a kibosh on a lot of my birding--I spent an inordinate amount of time staring out our windows at our feeders.  At least I was rewarded with our first backyard Orange-crowned Warbler.  

I did manage to get around in the two weeks between the ice melting and the blizzard. Some year birds weren't recounted here because they eluded photography.  Two of the birds this month were "hard," (for me at least) --a Purple Finch that I heard at the Manahawkin WMA and a Glaucous Gull at Island Beach, whose presence I was alert to by Steve the previous day. I made the long trek out to the north jetty not really expecting to find the bird when a large white-winged light-gray mantled gull flew in from Barnegat Light, came in low over my head, then made a U-turn back to the south. In almost every other county of New Jersey, Glaucous Gull is considered rare but not in Ocean, inexplicably.  Believe it--they're rare. I also, on my trek along the south end of IBSP came across my first Lesser Black-backed Gull. I was about to photograph it when it was flushed by the only other person I saw walking on the beach that day--typical. 

The final year bird of the month was a rarity, but only because of time of year--a Blue-winged Teal at Lake of the Lilies that I spotted the day before the blizzard hit. I was about to give up on finding it when a birding group came along and one of the leaders got it in his scope--on the far shore weaving in and out of the phragmites. Not the greatest looks, but the facial crescent was clearly seen. That was a beautifully warm winter day--it was hard to imagine that a gigantic snowstorm was on its way. But just because you can't imagine doesn't mean it won't happen. 30 inches of snow and we weren't plowed out until late Tuesday night. Fortunately, for the birds, I had filled up our feeders the day before--fortunately for me too because otherwise I'd have been looking at a blank expanse of snow for most of the week. 

Backyard birding: Mourning Dove

Eastern Bluebird

103 species for the month, which was actually quite a bit better than last year when I couldn't even break the century mark.

Species           First Sighting
Snow Goose   Manasquan Inlet
Brant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Canada Goose   35 Sunset Rd
Mute Swan   Manahawkin Lake
Tundra Swan   Bamber Lake
Wood Duck   Pemberton Lake WMA
Blue-winged Teal   Lake of the Lilies
American Wigeon   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Mallard   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
American Black Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Northern Pintail   Pemberton Lake WMA
Canvasback   Lake of the Lilies
Redhead   Holly Lake
Ring-necked Duck   Holly Lake
Greater Scaup   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Lesser Scaup   Lake of the Lilies
Common Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Surf Scoter   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
White-winged Scoter   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Black Scoter   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Long-tailed Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Bufflehead   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Common Goldeneye   Sloop & Potter Creek Marshes
Hooded Merganser   Bay Pkwy
Common Merganser   Holly Lake
Red-breasted Merganser   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Ruddy Duck   Lake of the Lilies
Rock Pigeon   New Egypt
Mourning Dove   35 Sunset Rd
American Coot   Lake of the Lilies
American Oystercatcher   Great Bay Bvld. WMA
Black-bellied Plover   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Greater Yellowlegs   Manahawkin WMA
Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Sanderling   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Dunlin   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Purple Sandpiper   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Razorbill   Manasquan Inlet
Ring-billed Gull   Jakes Branch County Park
American Herring Gull   Jakes Branch County Park
Great Black-backed Gull   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Glaucous Gull   Island Beach SP
Lesser Black-backed Gull   Island Beach SP
Horned Grebe   Great Bay Bvld. WMA
Red-necked Grebe   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Red-throated Loon   Manasquan Inlet
Common Loon   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Great Cormorant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Double-crested Cormorant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Great Blue Heron   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Black Vulture   Whiting
Turkey Vulture   235 Brynmore Rd, New Egypt
Sharp-shinned Hawk   New Egypt
Northern Harrier   West Creek Dock Rd.
Bald Eagle   New Egypt
Red-shouldered Hawk   West Creek Dock Rd.
Red-tailed Hawk   BC Fairgrounds
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   35 Sunset Rd
Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-bellied Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd
Downy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd
Hairy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd
Northern Flicker   Whitesbog
American Kestrel   BC Fairgrounds
Merlin   Double Trouble SP
Blue Jay   35 Sunset Rd
American Crow   New Egypt
Fish Crow   Sands Point Park
Common Raven   New Egypt
Carolina Chickadee   35 Sunset Rd
Tufted Titmouse   35 Sunset Rd
Horned Lark   New Egypt
Golden-crowned Kinglet   Lake Carasaljo
White-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd
Brown Creeper   Colliers Mills WMA
Carolina Wren   New Egypt
European Starling   35 Sunset Rd
Northern Mockingbird   New Egypt
Eastern Bluebird   35 Sunset Rd
Hermit Thrush   Whitesbog
American Robin   35 Sunset Rd
House Sparrow   New Egypt
House Finch   35 Sunset Rd
Purple Finch   Manahawkin WMA
American Goldfinch   35 Sunset Rd
Snow Bunting   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Chipping Sparrow   Whitesbog
Field Sparrow   Whitesbog
American Tree Sparrow   Shelter Cove Park
Fox Sparrow   Great Bay Bvld. WMA
Dark-eyed Junco   35 Sunset Rd
White-crowned Sparrow   Pinelands Alliance Headquarters
White-throated Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd
Savannah Sparrow   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Song Sparrow   New Egypt
Red-winged Blackbird   Lake of the Lilies
Brown-headed Cowbird   New Egypt
Common Grackle   Whitesbog
Boat-tailed Grackle   Great Bay Bvld. WMA
Orange-crowned Warbler   35 Sunset Rd
Yellow-rumped Warbler   35 Sunset Rd
Northern Cardinal   35 Sunset Rd

Shelter Cove 2/17--American Tree Sparrow

Disappointed, he trudged through the ice and slush of the Shelter Cove soccer fields on his way back to his car, not realizing that by quitting his search he had set in motion the Second Law of Birding, which states that you will not see the bird until you have (truly) given up on seeing it. There, right in the parking lot next to his car, 6 birds flew up at his approach. When he spotted them in the copse of trees where he had first looked a half hour ago, he saw the American Tree Sparrows he had come for. They flew off when as he turned toward them, flying into the mini-wetlands behind the trees. He chased them as well as he could through the ice and brambles, getting some unsatisfactory, barely usable photos. Mostly he got very good pictures of twigs. 

He returned to his car, with a semblance of a feeling of accomplishment, when the irony continued. After putting away his camera and taking off his bins, the sparrows returned to the spot where he originally had seen them. He was able to take much better photos through the window of his car. 

American Tree Sparrow
with the classic "stick pin" on the breast

Pemberton Lake | PPA | BC Fairgrounds 2/15--Wood Duck, Northern Pintail, American Kestrel, White-crowned Sparrow

American Kestrel
BC Fairgrounds

A Sunday morning in Burlco. I very often spend Sunday mornings at Reeve's Bogs, but since the great freeze over of 2026, that place is pretty much inaccessible, so I decided to try some Burlco spots that were yielding interesting reports. 

I started off at Pemberton Lake. No surprise that it was 75% frozen, but there was open water in the back and with my scope I was able to find a few ducks among the 100 or so Canada Geese. The first year bird for the day was a drake Wood Duck--it had been so long since I had seen one and it was so distant, that it took a moment for me to realize what I had in the scope. Next in view was a gorgeous drake Redhead, rare in county, and then the expected Mallards and a couple of Ring-necked Ducks. I ended my sweep when I got to a Bald Eagle on the ice, chowing down on a goose carcass. Swinging back, I came across a couple of Northern Pintails dabbling and a hen Lesser Scaup, fairly unusual for that spot. 

Then I drove over to the PPA--technically now the Pinelands Alliance Headquarters since they recently changed the name of the organization--where the walking was a little difficult, but where I found what I was looking for--a White-crowned Sparrow right in the brush where I parked the car. I tried for pictures, but the camera focused on the twigs the bird was behind. I also enjoyed a huge flock of Snow Geese that flew overhead--at least 150. 

Then it was on to the BC Fairgrounds. After not finding a Rough-legged Hawk 3 times in Ocean County, I thought maybe I would bump into the one reported there yesterday. But if not, I was fairly confident that I would see an American Kestrel there and I was right--after parking the car, I plunked down the scope, focused on the weather station at the back of the field, and there midway up the tower was the kestrel. That's a lot easier than cruising the roads of New Egypt, looking for one, which is what I spent part of yesterday morning doing. 

I scanned every stand of trees in the field and could not come up with the desired buteo. I took a long walk around the grounds, found one Northern Harrier and some usual land birds and when I returned to the car, about 45 minutes later, I saw a small bird in one of the trees. I thought the kestrel had moved. I got out the scope again and the small bird had turned into a large hawk. Could this be the rough-legged? It was really distant and the light was murky (as you can see from the picture of the kestrel) and I went back and forth on the identification, leaving it open until I got home where I could blow up the crappy photos I took.  I have been fooled more than once by a Red-tailed Hawk there when I wanted a rough-legged and today was the same story. And the small bird? My photos revealed that it had been a Norther Flicker that had to make way for the red-tail when the hawk decided that of all the branches in those woods, the branch the flicker was on was the one it wanted.

29 Species for the day.

Species           Location

Snow Goose    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Canada Goose    Pemberton Lake WMA

Wood Duck    Pemberton Lake WMA

Mallard    Pemberton Lake WMA

Northern Pintail    Pemberton Lake WMA

Redhead    Pemberton Lake WMA

Ring-necked Duck    Pemberton Lake WMA

Lesser Scaup    Pemberton Lake WMA

Mourning Dove    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Ring-billed Gull    BC Fairgrounds

Turkey Vulture    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Northern Harrier    BC Fairgrounds

Bald Eagle    Pemberton Lake WMA

Red-tailed Hawk    BC Fairgrounds

Red-bellied Woodpecker    Pemberton Lake WMA

Northern Flicker    BC Fairgrounds

American Kestrel    BC Fairgrounds

Blue Jay    Pemberton Lake WMA

American Crow    Pemberton Lake WMA

Tufted Titmouse    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

European Starling    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Eastern Bluebird    BC Fairgrounds

American Robin    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

House Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Dark-eyed Junco    BC Fairgrounds

White-crowned Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

White-throated Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Song Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Common Grackle    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Colliers Mills 2/14

Walking on the east side of Colliers Mills Lake this morning I saw a man and woman out on the ice. They were preparing to ice fish. The man waved Hello to me and I shouted back, "You're very brave." In response, he just sort of shrugged his shoulders and hollered back, "It's 9 inches thick." Which I guess is more than enough to safely stand on ice. But it made me wonder, who is the meshuggeneh that first goes out there with an augur to find out that the ice is thick enough to stand on and what if it isn't? And for what--the only fish in that water are pickerel and you'd need a lot of pickerel to make a meal. 

Meanwhile, this meshuggeneh was walking on top of frozen snow in the woods north of Success Road looking for Red-headed Woodpeckers which finally turned up after I had walked farther than I planned. Two finally flew out of the woods, across the field, and into the next stand of trees, too far and too fast for photos, but at I had won my little game again. 

While Success Road was clear, nothing else was, so it was slow going through the fields and over the berm and down Hawkin Road. The temperature was just high enough to start melting the hard-packed snow so that occasionally my foot would plunge through it. Birds were at a premium--obviously no waterfowl today but walking down a side road I looked up and saw in the branches just above my head, a Red-shouldered Hawk which was very calm and didn't seem to care that I was right below it. 

Only 20 species for the day.

American Herring Gull  36
Turkey Vulture  1
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker  1
Red-headed Woodpecker  2     
Red-bellied Woodpecker  3
Downy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  5
Common Raven  1     Croaking
Carolina Chickadee  3
Tufted Titmouse  5
White-breasted Nuthatch  6
Brown Creeper  1
European Starling  1
Eastern Bluebird  1
American Robin  20
Dark-eyed Junco  25
Song Sparrow  1
Red-winged Blackbird  2
Northern Cardinal  1