Great Bay Blvd 4/15--Savannah Sparrow

Our mission today was to find American Oystercatchers for Shari because for whatever reason, oystercatchers make her inordinately happy and we didn't see any yesterday at Brig. I thought that Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton would be a likely spot even though there had been no eBird reports since October of last year.

The road runs about 5 miles through marshes to an inlet that separates its beach from the southern tip of Long Beach Island. In Tuckerton the road is known as Seven Bridges Road. There are five bridges on the road. Where the two missing bridges are I don't know. Maybe near the Bridge to Nowhere a little north of there.

I was also interested to look at a couple of odd sites along the road. I've been reading Ghost Towns and Other Quirky Place in the New Jersey Pine Barrens--yesterday's trip to Estell Manor was partly inspired by the book. The book mentions a huge shell mound where the Lenape Indians dumped their clam, oyster, and conch shells for 1500 years, as well as the ruins of a huge fish factory in the vicinity. I'd seen the ruins before, though I never knew what they were, but I'd never noticed the shell mound. It was a let down. The mound has been overgrown with trees and reeds and we could barely make out the shells within. Shari took some photos, but they just look like clumps of vegetation. 1500 years of shells equals 1/10 of an acre, 10 feet high and extending 14 feet below the surface. That's a lot of shells. It just shows that New Jersey has a long history of garbage dumps.

The fish factory was easier to see.

Photos: Shari Zirlin

At its peak, in the 1950's it processed 200 million fish, mostly menhaden. Then the menhaden were fished out.

Driving over the 5 bridges we came across the expected egrets, gulls, grackles and swallows. It wasn't until we reached the end of the road that we started seeing more interesting birds. At the parking area there were Palm Warblers, a Field Sparrow, and a couple of FOY Savannah Sparrows one with very yellow supercilliary stripes.

At the beach there was a large flock of Brant close in but no other ducks or geese. Shari was scanning the beach when she started to make little happy sounds--she'd found 2 American Oystercatchers on a hummock of sand along with a Black-bellied Plover. One of them dug out a mussel and had a hell of time with it. At one point the mussel clamped onto its bill and it ran around trying to shake it off. Finally it did and it got its revenge, prying open the mussel.

We drove back over the five bridges (I counted again, just to be certain), looking for anything else unusual, like a Tri-colored Heron that had been reported, but had no luck and headed out for lunch and home.
26 species
Brant  150
Double-crested Cormorant  15
Great Blue Heron  4
Great Egret  18
Snowy Egret  1
Osprey  6
Black-bellied Plover  1
American Oystercatcher  2
Greater Yellowlegs  1
Laughing Gull  1
Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  10
Forster's Tern  15
Mourning Dove  1
Fish Crow  10
Tree Swallow  10
American Robin  1
European Starling  5
Palm Warbler  3
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Field Sparrow  1
Savannah Sparrow  2
Song Sparrow  6
Dark-eyed Junco  1
Red-winged Blackbird  50
Boat-tailed Grackle  20