Brigantine 10/21--American Bittern

Our first stop at Brigantine is always the Gull Pond Tower. Today when we pulled in, we found a small group of birders staring intently into the reeds. Here's what they were looking at:

It's the first American Bittern I've seen in years. Maybe you're having a hard time seeing it. This picture is a easier:

With their stripes and their coloration, when they take their stance of standing with their bill straight up in the phragmites, and sometimes waving back and forth in sync with the reeds in the breeze, you can see why this bird is hard to find. We had driven the road to the tower very slowly, with Shari gazing into the marsh looking for the bittern where it had been seen (by everyone but me) last week. It was there--someone else saw it--but not us. So it was a true thrill to see this bird today. We could have turned around and gone home and the day would have been a success.

Eventually the bittern moved deeper into the marsh and disappeared. We went up to the tower to check out the flock of water fowl in the back. A good number of coots and Wood Ducks were out there along with the first of a thousand or so Green-winged Teals and pintails that we would see today. Then we noticed the bittern again out in a small pool of open water, but screened by the reeds to anyone at ground level. And instead of just standing there it was actively feeding, trying to pull an eel   into its mouth. Shari went down again to see if she could find an angle for another picture but as I was directing her from above, another birder, oblivious to what was going on five feet in front of her, slammed her car door and the bittern flew up and off into the higher growth in the middle. It makes you think about how much is going on right by you that you just don't see.

This time of year the refuge managers keep the water high for the ducks, so there isn't much room for any shorebirds to feed--but we did find a good number of Dunlin on one exposed patch of mud, along with a few Black-bellied Plovers and a couple of yellowlegs we heard first and then found flying by.

The two most common passerines today were Blue Jays and Yellow-rumped Warblers. My numbers only reflect the ones I saw--if I had bothered counting the one I heard, the numbers would probably be double, maybe even triple for the butterbutts.

47 species for the day. I'm know we most likely missed quite a few birds, but squinting through a scope at a flock of ducks, gulls or gees, looking for the one unusual species is something that I rarely have the patience to do. There were also lots of sparrows popping up and disappearing into the high grass--a better birder would have been able to i.d. them. As it was, I was able to pick out a couple each of the more common sparrows to be found there.

The bittern made the day and also washed away the bitterness I felt from last week when the bird eluded me because I wasn't able to park the car fast enough or close enough to see it before pulled its vanishing act.

Our list:
Canada Goose  100
Mute Swan  6
Wood Duck  17
American Black Duck  310
Mallard  20
Blue-winged Teal  2    Experimental Pool
Northern Shoveler  5
Northern Pintail  1000
Green-winged Teal  1000    Conservative count
Ruddy Duck  300    Turtle Cove
Pied-billed Grebe  6
Double-crested Cormorant  65
American Bittern  1    Gull Tower
Great Blue Heron  4
Great Egret  22
Snowy Egret  5
Turkey Vulture  2
Northern Harrier  2
Red-tailed Hawk  1
American Coot  18
Black-bellied Plover  4
Greater Yellowlegs  2
Dunlin  210
Ring-billed Gull  X
Herring Gull  X
Great Black-backed Gull  2
Forster's Tern  1
Belted Kingfisher  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  5    Heard
Northern Flicker  1    Heard, Leeds Eco Trail
Merlin  1
Peregrine Falcon  2
Blue Jay  20
American Crow  10
Tree Swallow  2    Gull Tower
Carolina Chickadee  5
White-breasted Nuthatch  1    Heard, Leeds Eco Trail
Carolina Wren  2    Heard
American Robin  1    Jen's Trail
Gray Catbird  1    Jen's Trail
Yellow-rumped Warbler  20
Savannah Sparrow  2
Song Sparrow  2
Swamp Sparrow  1    Leed's Eco Trail
White-throated Sparrow  1    Heard, Leeds Eco Trail
Northern Cardinal  2    Picnic Tables
Red-winged Blackbird  20