Here's a sweet one: Today we drove over to Island Beach State Park. Island Beach is at the end of one Jersey's longer barrier beaches but technically it isn't an island, or on an island, but rather the southern end of a very long peninsula that starts at Point Pleasant about 20 miles north. I have great nostalgia for Island Beach and nearby Seaside Heights, since they are where I would, once a summer long ago, make a drive with my parents to go swimming and then to walk and eat along Seaside Heights' boardwalk.
Island Beach is the nearest beach to our house, but we hardly ever go there because, up until today, I could never figure out a good way of birding the park. Today we just worked out way south, parking at the head of 3 short trails and slowly worked our way to the bayside along each one.
In the parking lot this morning there was a small mixed flock of sparrows, one of which stood out with a very clear breast, a yellowish stripe near its eye and a very pink bill. Our first reaction was Field Sparrow but there was no rusty crown. Consulting our amazingly beat up Peterson's we saw that our bird matched exactly his rendering of an immature White-crowned Sparrow. This is one of those sparrows that everyone else seems to find with no trouble but that I have to go to a place like California to get, so I was pretty pleased to find it today.
Other notable birds we encounterd on our wanderings: A plethora of Golden-crowned Kinglets--I counted 25 and those are just the ones I saw, the cedar trees were ringing with their calls; a couple of FOS Brown Creepers; more Red-breasted Nuthatches than we normally see in a day; and 7 Great Blue Herons flying in a V formation.
The started out cold and overcast. White-crowned Sparrows were the predominate sparrow and the season sure seemed right for them. Not much was going on in the bay or the ocean. A couple of more weeks and the waters should be full of ducks, grebes, and loons. Today we had 32 species before lunch and considered it a decent day, especially in terms of entertaining passerines.
Double-crested Cormorant 90
Great Blue Heron 7 F/O
Great Egret 1 Spizzle Creek
Osprey 3
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Laughing Gull 2
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 1
Merlin 1
Red-eyed Vireo 2
Blue Jay 1 Heard
Tree Swallow 250
Carolina Chickadee 2 Heard
Red-breasted Nuthatch 5
Brown Creeper 2
House Wren 1
Carolina Wren 3 Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet 25
Gray Catbird 8
Northern Mockingbird 3 Parking lot 1
Brown Thrasher 1 Reed's Road
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Eastern Towhee 5 Heard
Song Sparrow 1 Parking lot 1
White-throated Sparrow 11
White-crowned Sparrow 1 Parking lot 1
Northern Cardinal 1 Spizzle Creek trail
Red-winged Blackbird 6
House Finch 2 Parking lot 1
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