Great Bay Blvd 5/25--Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

While I was at Double Trouble this morning, Jerry, our neighbor, came by to ask if we were interested in going to Tuckerton with him in the afternoon--he goes crabbing there but he also shares our interest in birds. Shari couldn't go, but as soon as I got home I was ready to turn around and go back out.

Great Bay Blvd is also know as Seven Bridges Road despite there only being five bridges (Jerry thinks they're counting a couple of culverts) and the bridges are so narrow that the stop lights are timed to allow only one traffic. All the bridges say no swimming, jumping, fishing, crabbing. No one swims or jumps (that I've seen) but a lot of people, including Jerry, crab & fish. And, he says, with no consequences from the authorities. He threw over 5 or 6 cages and tended them while I birded in the vicinity of the first wooden bridge.

I was picking up the usual birds--egrets, gulls, terns, grackles, blackbirds,--thoroughly enjoying the beautiful weather (quite a contrast from this morning's conditions)--when I spotted a distant bird in the marsh. I was standing in the middle of the bridge and didn't think I had enough room to open up the scope without blocking traffic, but I did anyway, and there, easily seen, was, finally, my first Yellow-crowned Night-Heron of the year. Yay! I showed Jerry the bird in the scope and he thought it was a cool looking bird. Then he looked up to where the scope was pointing and when he realized he couldn't even see a speck that might be the bird he was really impressed with the power of the scope. The bird must have been a half mile away, but the Swarovski picked it out clearly.

The crabs Jerry caught, except for one, were either females loaded with eggs or two small to keep. The one keeper he caught at the very end of our stay there he gave to another crabber on the bridge who'd only caught one and wanted one more for his wife.

Another entertaining aspect of the day was watching four Horseshoe Crabs ponderously move about in the shallows, the 3 smaller males all trying to mate with the huge female.

22 species in the afternoon:
Double-crested Cormorant  2
Great Egret  10
Snowy Egret  2
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  1
Glossy Ibis  6
Turkey Vulture  4
Osprey  3
Black-bellied Plover  6
Semipalmated Plover  2
Willet  3
Semipalmated Sandpiper  7
Laughing Gull  10
Herring Gull  15
Great Black-backed Gull  3
Least Tern  1
Forster's Tern  5
Willow Flycatcher  1    Heard
Barn Swallow  25
Northern Mockingbird  1
Common Yellowthroat  1
Red-winged Blackbird  20
Boat-tailed Grackle  30