Barnegat Lighthouse SP 2/4--Common Eider, Ruddy Turnstone, Red-necked Grebe

Red-necked Grebe

Talk about your Frozen Wastes. This morning, having determined yesterday that there is nothing by icy paths and roads at all my usual spots, I tried Barnegat Lighthouse SP, figuring that the beach would clear of snow from wind and waves. The temperature was a balmy 27 degrees when I got there and the view from the concrete walkway showed I was partially right in my assumption. Not that that there weren't some slippery slidey parts of the walkway itself. Scoping out over the inlet, I saw mostly Red-breasted Mergansers and Common Loons. If I wanted to see anything new for the year, I was going to have to make my way out to the ocean, I thought. I was weighing my adventurous potential on the way back toward the lighthouse, reminding myself that slush was safer to walk on than what might be hidden beneath snow, when I turned to my right just at the entrance and saw a bird I hadn't seen all of last year. With its long, yellow, dagger-like beak and bulky body, there was no mistaking a Red-necked Grebe. The question was, with three pairs of gloves on would I be able to extricate my camera from my bag and would if I could, would I be able to take photos before the bird dove or disappeared. The answer was obviously "yes" but it wasn't easy especially considering that the outer pair of gloves were actually mittens. I may as well have been wearing boxing gloves. 

Ruddy Turnstones

But the sight of the grebe reinvigorated me and, after eschewing the ice-caked steps down to the beach and taking another path instead, I made my way across the permafrost to the inland pond which was almost completely frozen. Some of the walking was fine, frozen sand, and some of the walking was on and occasionally through 6 or 7 inches of ice and snow. When I finally made my way out to the ocean I was rewarded with the sight of 7 Common Eiders, new for the year, along with lots of Great Cormorants on the jetty and far out along the rocks 4 Harlequin Ducks. Scanning along the jetty (which was totally inaccessible) looking for Purple Sandpipers, I came across some sleeping Ruddy Turnstones another bird that has avoided me this year. A couple of big flocks of Dunlins flew onto the jetty and in the second one I managed to find the Purple Sandpiper scattered through the flock. 

Now, I only needed one more species to make the trek more or less a success. I turned off the beach and walked through what in the summer would be the pond's mud flats, looking for land birds of which there were none. Back up on the slope overlooking the pond, I found a few more new species for the day, including a couple of Black-bellied Plovers and then, out of nowhere, the birds I was hoping for--Snow Buntings--flew over my shoulder and practically landed on my toes before moving along in front of me. While I had Snow Bunting for the year, up at Sandy Hook, I hadn't come across them yet in county.

For the morning's efforts 36 species, which is way more than I've been getting in the frozen parks and bogs. They were:

Brant  5
Canada Goose  10
American Wigeon  1     Inlet!
Mallard  10
American Black Duck  40
Greater Scaup  2
Common Eider  7
Harlequin Duck  4
Surf Scoter  2
White-winged Scoter  3
Black Scoter  25
Long-tailed Duck  50
Bufflehead  15
Red-breasted Merganser  100
Black-bellied Plover  2
Ruddy Turnstone  11
Sanderling  6
Dunlin  125
Purple Sandpiper  13
American Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  30
Red-necked Grebe  1
Great Cormorant  30     Many. Probably more
Double-crested Cormorant  10
Great Blue Heron  1
Bald Eagle  1     Flew over inlet toward IBSP
American Crow  1
Horned Lark  1     Pool
European Starling  15
American Robin  25
House Sparrow  1
Snow Bunting  20     Pool
Savannah Sparrow  1
Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich)  2
Song Sparrow  6
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Northern Cardinal  1

January Wrap-up

Greater White-Fronted Goose

It's winter in New Jersey; it's supposed to be cold. But I don't remember a stretch a sub-freezing weather lasting this long--over a week--where the mid-20's might be the high for the day. And with no temperatures above 32 that leaves the 9 or so inches of ice-covered snow still on the ground. Which really cuts down on the places one can bird, since paths through woods or fields don't usually get ploughed. I went to Whitesbog this week to check out what was accessible, since it is part of my territory for the Pinelands Winter Bird Count which was scheduled for tomorrow. Happily, that got postponed, since only a very small portion of Whitesbog was clear enough to walk. The conditions around here are so bad that I can't even get to our feeders because the backyard is like an ice rink and as much as I love birds, I'm not going to break a leg for them. 

So, with those lousy conditions at the end of the month, how did I do? 105 species. Exactly the same as last January, which was, according to Jersey Central Power & Light, actually 2 degrees colder on average than this month. It was a good month for the rare geese--Cackling Goose, Ross's Goose, and the Greater White-fronted Geese Mike & I found on the CBC. I got the immature Trumpeter Swan on the year and county list before it disappeared from Stafford Forge. The early herons at the Lighthouse Center were the last new birds I listed for the month before the deep freeze set in. 

But, you know me: Always the optimist, always the one looking for the positive aspect of any situation and here's the good news about the relentlessly bitter weather: It will keep the tick population down this summer because even now the inner fluids of those little bastards are freezing beneath the snow and they are exploding from the internal pressure. Thus, the happy consequence of this weather: Death.

Species              First Sighting
Ross's Goose   Maris Stella
Greater White-fronted Goose   Ocean Acres Park
Brant   Great Bay Bvld. WMA
Cackling Goose   Marshall's Pond
Canada Goose   Sandy Hook
Mute Swan   Holly Lake
Trumpeter Swan   Stafford Forge WMA
Tundra Swan   Bamber Lake
Northern Shoveler   Marshall's Pond
Gadwall   Marshall's Pond
American Wigeon   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Mallard   Sandy Hook
American Black Duck   Sandy Hook
Green-winged Teal   Ocean Acres Pond
Ring-necked Duck   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
Greater Scaup   Sandy Hook
Lesser Scaup   Lake Carasaljo
Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Surf Scoter   Sandy Hook
White-winged Scoter   Sandy Hook
Black Scoter   Sandy Hook
Long-tailed Duck   Sandy Hook
Bufflehead   Sandy Hook
Common Goldeneye   Sandy Hook
Hooded Merganser   Bridge to Nowhere
Common Merganser   Lake Carasaljo
Red-breasted Merganser   Sandy Hook
Ruddy Duck   Cattus Island County Park
Rock Pigeon   Wawa South Toms River
Mourning Dove   35 Sunset Rd
Black-bellied Plover   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Killdeer   Ocean Acres Park
Greater Yellowlegs   Eno’s Pond
Sanderling   Sandy Hook
Dunlin   Holgate
Purple Sandpiper   Seven Presidents Park
Razorbill   Island Beach SP
Ring-billed Gull   35 Sunset Rd
American Herring Gull   Sandy Hook
Great Black-backed Gull   Sandy Hook
Pied-billed Grebe   Lake Carasaljo
Red-throated Loon   Island Beach SP
Common Loon   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Great Cormorant   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Double-crested Cormorant   Sandy Hook
Little Blue Heron   Lighthouse Center for Natural Resource Education
Tricolored Heron   Lighthouse Center for Natural Resource Education
Great Egret   West Creek Dock Rd.
Great Blue Heron   Holly Lake
Black Vulture   Manahawkin
Turkey Vulture   Stafford Township
Sharp-shinned Hawk   Stafford Township
Cooper's Hawk   Great Bay Bvld. WMA
Northern Harrier   Bridge to Nowhere
Bald Eagle   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
Red-shouldered Hawk   Butterfly Bogs WMA
Red-tailed Hawk   Colliers Mills WMA
Eastern Screech-Owl   Beach Ave
Great Horned Owl   Beach Ave
Belted Kingfisher   Manahawkin WMA
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
Red-headed Woodpecker   Colliers Mills WMA
Red-bellied Woodpecker   Sandy Hook
Downy Woodpecker   35 Sunset Rd
Hairy Woodpecker   Beach Ave
Northern Flicker   Beach Ave
Merlin   Cranberry Bogs
Blue Jay   35 Sunset Rd
American Crow   35 Sunset Rd
Fish Crow   Mud City
Common Raven   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
Carolina Chickadee   35 Sunset Rd
Black-capped Chickadee   Sandy Hook
Tufted Titmouse   35 Sunset Rd
Horned Lark   Sandy Hook
Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Manahawkin WMA
Golden-crowned Kinglet   Manahawkin WMA
White-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd
Red-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd
Brown Creeper   Colliers Mills WMA
Carolina Wren   35 Sunset Rd
European Starling   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
Northern Mockingbird   Sandy Hook
Eastern Bluebird   35 Sunset Rd
Hermit Thrush   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
American Robin   35 Sunset Rd
House Sparrow   Holly Lake
House Finch   35 Sunset Rd
Red Crossbill   Whitesbog
American Goldfinch   35 Sunset Rd
Lapland Longspur   Sandy Hook
Snow Bunting   Sandy Hook
Chipping Sparrow   Colliers Mills WMA
Dark-eyed Junco   35 Sunset Rd
White-throated Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd
Savannah Sparrow   Barnegat Lighthouse SP
Song Sparrow   Stanley H. 'Tip' Seaman County Park
Swamp Sparrow   Beach Ave
Red-winged Blackbird   Manahawkin WMA
Brown-headed Cowbird   Little Egg Harbor Twp
Rusty Blackbird   Manahawkin WMA
Common Grackle   Cattus Island County Park
Boat-tailed Grackle   West Creek Dock Rd.
Yellow-rumped Warbler   35 Sunset Rd
Northern Cardinal   35 Sunset Rd

Lighthouse Center 1/23--Little Blue Heron, Tricolored Heron

Little Blue Heron

 I had never been to the Lighthouse Center in the winter, but since I was in the neighborhood this morning, I swung by there. I know from the Barnegat CBC that it can be a productive spot and with the two over-wintering rarities that I found there, it turned out to be so. 

Tricolored Herons are turning up more frequently in winter and in more places in the county than in previous years. It used to be that you'd be able to find one on LBI in the marshes off Bayview Avenue, but this year there are confirmed reports from Island Beach SP, Manahawkin, and the Lighthouse Center as well as LBI. Today, the tide was very low, so I was able to walk around a point and up a little creek that empties into the bay. About 100 yards into the marsh, I saw four Great Egrets and with them, two Tricolored Herons. Great Egrets do hang around in small numbers, but four, to eBird is apparently not a small number. I tried to very surreptitiously creep up a little closer, getting behind a stand of phragmites while I dug my camera out of my bag, but I wasn't sneaky enough since all six birds flew off. As I stood on the bank of the creek cursing, I saw one more white heron way out in the marsh. I took a couple of shots of what I though was one of the egrets since I already had my camera out. However, when I looked at the bird blown up in the viewfinder, I saw that it had a gray/blue beak and realized that it was an immature Little Blue Heron hunkered down in the reeds. It's a crappy shot, but it's all I got. 

I walked around some and then returned to the creek, hoping that the birds would have returned. I looked out in the marsh where I had previously seen them and they weren't there. But much closer, standing in the creek, was one of the Tricoloreds, which promptly flew away as soon as I reached for my camera. More cursing. 

In a few months, these two herons won't be rare. It hasn't been an especially warm winter, but the marshes freeze at a little lower temperature than the freshwater ponds, so there has been food for them to find. With the oncoming storm and absolutely frigid temperatures for the next few days, it will be interesting to see if they stick around. 

27 species
Brant  40
Canada Goose  7
Mute Swan  8
American Black Duck  7
Greater Scaup  20
Long-tailed Duck  2
Bufflehead  50
Red-breasted Merganser  8
Mourning Dove  3
Killdeer  4
American Herring Gull  5
Common Loon  1
Little Blue Heron  1     
Tricolored Heron  2     
Great Egret  4     
Great Blue Heron  1
Northern Harrier  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Northern Flicker  1
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  1
Tufted Titmouse  1
American Robin  50
House Finch  1
Song Sparrow  1
Red-winged Blackbird  2
Yellow-rumped Warbler  3

Marshall's Pond 1/15--Cackling Goose

I don't like puzzles. When I see someone doing a jigsaw puzzle, my eyes glaze over. I'm not interested in finding the six differences between two seemingly identical pictures. I don't care where Waldo is. 

So when Steve texted me this afternoon that the Cackling Goose was back at Marshall's Pond, I was almost glad that I was stuck in the house waiting for a repairman to show up, because looking for a cackler in a spread-out flock of 300 Canada Geese is not an easy puzzle to solve. 

Back in December I ran over to the same pond to get a Cackling Goose, but whether this is the same one or another (there may even be two, judging from one of my photos where a second small goose seems to be photobombing me), who knows. My friend Bob Auster claims that if you look at any large flock of Canada Geese, you'll probably find a Cackler. Where's Waldo? Maybe he's there and maybe he isn't. 

Goose the size of a Mallard

But a couple of hours later, I was free to go and since I already had the rarer Greater White-fronted Goose and Ross's Goose on the year list, I figured it was worth a drive into Toms River. Marshall's Pond isn't all that large and the geese tend to congregate in its western section, so they're fairly close to the edge of the water and Steve had given me a landmark where he had last seen the bird but even with all those advantages, it still took me over 20 minutes to finally locate the cackler in the honking, ever-shifting flock of Canada Geese. It was a Mallard that helped me. In the middle of the flock the duck was floating around and right next to it was a goose no bigger than it--and then I saw the stubby bill and the short neck and knew I had the cackler, but if it hadn't been next to the duck, I'd probably never have found it, because all the geese are in different positions, sometimes stretching their necks, sometimes hunkering down, sometimes scooping water, sometimes having their heads tucked into their wings. But a goose the size of a duck? Puzzle solved. 

Red-shouldered Hawk

The other cool bird of the day came in the morning when I was knocking around Jackson. After a couple of unexciting walks through some local spots there, I drove over to Butterfly Bogs where there are usually a lot of ducks--I was hoping for something new but I all I saw were the expected species--lots of them, but nothing new. I went back to the car and as I was opening up the hatch I turned to my right and saw, low in a tree not 15 feet away from me, a Red-shouldered Hawk, apparently oblivious to my presence. I quietly put my scope in the back of the car, got my camera off my shoulder and took some photos of a bird I more often hear ("keer, keer, keer") than see, and certainly have never seen this close. Not a rarity, but a nice little exclamation point on an otherwise dull morning. 

Colliers Mills 1/9--Red-headed Woodpecker

 This morning I decided it was time to play "Find the Red-headed Woodpecker" at Colliers Mills. It's a game I like to play because I almost always win. And they're beautiful birds to see. Red-headed Woodpeckers are not considered "rare" in Ocean County, but there are really only two places you can reliably find them--Colliers Mills and Cloverdale Farm. Occasionally one shows up at Island Beach in the spring, but the key word here is "reliably." What's funny to me is that over in Burlington County I can think of 4 or 5 spots where they're pretty easy to find and yet there the bird is listed as rare. 

The way I play the game is to walk over to the woods north of Success Road and serpentine around, playing the call on my phone a couple of times. Then I scan the dead the trees and walk through all the leaf litter and after 5 minutes I'm ready to give up. Then I find one flying from one tree to another. Today that's what happened, except after the first one, another one followed it into the same tree. And then another. While the birds aren't considered rare, the eBird filter doesn't "think" you should see more than two, which is silly, since they breed there and the word "breed" implies >2. After I watched them for a few minutes go from oak to oak (the ground was littered in acorns), I started back out. Before I got to the gate that gives onto the field, I found a fourth in a different stand of tree. The 6th 
Law of Birding says, "You only need one," so this would have amounted to showing off, if I hadn't seen a fifth bird later in the morning in the trees east of the police firing range. Five Red-headed Woodpeckers does seem excessive. The 7th Law of Birding states that "No matter where you stand, the woodpecker is always on the other side of the tree," which explains the low quality of my photos.

I made my usual loop around Turnmill Lake and the Borden's Mill Branch pond, where there were no waterfowl except for a flyover flock of geese since the water was still frozen despite the relatively warm temperatures the last couple of days. It wasn't until I emerged on Hawkin Road that I added anymore birds to the year list: a Red-tailed Hawk was hunting over the pone on Hawkin, a Brown Creeper amongst the juncos, and quite a number of Chipping Sparrows in the brush at the start of the road, another count that, because they're supposed to be scarce in winter, broke the eBird filter--5 was acceptable, 10 too many

Only 20 species for the walk, but I won the game, again. 

Canada Goose  18
Turkey Vulture  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Red-headed Woodpecker  5    
Red-bellied Woodpecker  9
Blue Jay  16
Carolina Chickadee  9
Tufted Titmouse  1
Golden-crowned Kinglet  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  5
Brown Creeper  1     
Carolina Wren  4
European Starling  15
Eastern Bluebird  3
American Robin  2
American Goldfinch  1
Chipping Sparrow  10     
Dark-eyed Junco  25
White-throated Sparrow  2
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1     

LBI 1/6--Ross's Goose and Lots of Ducks

Ross's Geese

 On Sunday's Barnegat Christmas Bird Count, two rare species of geese were found--the Greater White-fronted Geese that Mike and I discovered in a town park in Ocean Acres, and two Ross's Geese on the lawn of Maris Stella, a Catholic conference center on LBI. According to my de facto rules, these were worth chasing, but I wasn't able to until this morning. Of course, when I drove up to the property on Long Beach Boulevard, there wasn't a goose in sight. Ah well, on to Barnegat Light SP where I could do some real birding.

At the park I ticked off the Barnegat Light specialties--Harlequin Duck, Purple Sandpiper, Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich ssp.), along with Great Cormorants and a lot of different ducks, including all 3 scoter species. The scoters made me especially happy, because for some reason, it is always difficult for me to track down White-winged Scoter in the county. I also had a couple of American Wigeon in the pool behind the dunes, which is unusual for the park, and a small flock of Black-bellied Plovers standing on the edge of the pool. 

Harlequin Ducks

I couldn't get onto the jetty from the beach. The tide was as high as I've seen it, and the tidal pools ran the length of the jetty so there was no access to it unless you ducked under the railings at the end of the concrete walkway and walked that slippery path--which I don't do no more. It was fine, I could see the Harlequins from the beach, and the other ducks were easily viewed from other points. 

The duck I don't get at the light is Common Goldeneye, so I left some energy to go down to Sunset Park in Harvey Cedars to look for them in that historical spot. On the way down I passed the Maris Stella conference center and saw 9 geese feeding on the grass. (Orthographic digression: it is Maris Stella which means Ocean Star instead of the expected Stella Maris which would mean Star of the Sea and the transposition that a lot of birders have put down for the Ross's Geese. I hate the spelling of "Ross's." I was taught that a to make the possessive of a word that ends in 's' you merely put the apostrophe at the end of the word, avoiding the ugly double "s's." With "Ross's" you wind up with three esses in a row--really atrocious typography.) 

It was easy to see that there were no Ross's in with the 9 geese and I was just about to completely pass the center when I saw a bigger flock of geese in the back. Screeching to a halt, I got out, walked back to the driveway where I could get a better angle, and there, feeding next to a shed and partially blocked by a wooden platform, were the two Ross's. According to one birder, he'd see them at Sunset Park early in the morning, and then they flew up to the center's grounds. Very satisfying to find them.

At Sunset Park, there were about a billion Brant, lots of Buffleheads, a few mergansers and Greater Scaup, but no goldeneyes that I could find in what open water there was. I stopped at my back up spot at 24th Street where I almost always find a goldeneye in winter, and there may have been one there but if it was, it was mixed in with a mile-long skein of scaup and I had neither the optics nor the patience to find one. Next time. 

32 species for a winter day.

Species   Count
Ross's Goose   2
Brant   350
Canada Goose   95
American Wigeon   2
Mallard   38
American Black Duck   30
Greater Scaup   25
Harlequin Duck   9
Surf Scoter   3
White-winged Scoter   1
Black Scoter   2
Long-tailed Duck   32
Bufflehead   137
Red-breasted Merganser   23
Black-bellied Plover   20
Sanderling   4
Purple Sandpiper   1
American Herring Gull   155
Great Black-backed Gull   3
Common Loon   5
Great Cormorant   12
Great Blue Heron   1
American Crow   1
Carolina Wren   1
European Starling   60
American Robin   27
House Sparrow   1
House Finch   5
Savannah Sparrow   1
Song Sparrow   1
Yellow-rumped Warbler   4
Northern Cardinal   3

Whitesbog 1/5--Red Crossbill

After bustling around Manahawkin yesterday, I just wanted a quiet walk today so I drove over to Whitesbog, even though I knew all the water would be frozen and that I couldn't expect to see or hear much. Since I didn't see any Tundra Swans on Union Pond's ice, I decided to walk the Ocean County side. Sometimes the swans stand on the ice of the Upper Reservoir. I walked up there via the Antrim Bogs, which were pretty quiet except for what my informant there likes to refer to as the "tweety birds:" Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch. I was surprised at how many Hairy Woodpeckers I was hearing. Usually, I get one, maybe two. Today I had five scattered all over the place. 

The breach between bogs

There were no swans on the Upper Reservoir, nor eagles, or any other raptors that I look for there. On my way back I was undecided if I wanted to go to the dogleg, knowing that I'd just have to backtrack. At one time, a few years ago, the road would have led me back to my car, but because the beavers were constantly clogging up a culvert that ran beneath the road, connecting one of the reservoirs to an old flooded blueberry field, the Whitesbog owner sent over some heavy machinery and just made a breach in the road so the water could flow freely. My informant built a rudimentary bridge for us, and after that got a little sketchy, the guys at Whitesbog put in a more solid wooden bridge. But erosion of the banks last year collapsed that bridge. I know they want to fix it, but it isn't a priority. I rationalized walking over there on the one in a hundred chance that they had repaired the bridge. They hadn't.

I was standing at the edge, looking at the ice, thinking about how much habitat the beavers have changed since I've been walking Whitesbog, when I heard a call that I at first took for another Hairy Woodpecker, but it didn't sound quite right. Fumbling with my gloves, I opened up Merlin. 

Now, I don't believe in a lot of what Merlin hears, especially when there are a lot of birds singing and calling in the area. The app hears 10 times more Golden-crowned Kinglets than I do, though, to give it it's due, I've also been alerted to birds like Cedar Waxwings and Blackpoll Warblers that I can't hear, but that I find when I'm aware they're around. I find it is most reliable when there is only one bird calling or singing. Today, that bird that I heard, and that Merlin also heard, was a Red Crossbill. It was calling from across the water on the other side of the old blueberry field where there are lots of pine trees. To get over there, which was probably about 500 feet away, I would have to backtrack completely, a walk of over a mile. 

Red Crossbills are notoriously flighty (pun intended) always on the move, looking for the next pinecone. I've come across them in some seemingly odd places like the Cranberry Bogs on Dover Road and at Stafford Forge. But, if there is a big stand of pine trees and it's winter, it's worth stopping a moment to listen. And it's always worth going the extra (half) mile to maximize your chances of listing something cool.