On our way down to Brig on this Thanksgiving Day I saw, on the off-ramp of Exit 48, two Ring-necked Pheasants grazing on the grass. This isn't the first time I've seen pheasant in this area. There are no WMAs around the area that I know of, so, according to my eccentric personal rules of listing, these birds are "wild" (they're living on their own) and thus countable, despite being "rare" in Atlantic County. Now, if I could just find a couple on the side of the road of Rt 539 as I have in the past, I could list them for Ocean County too. Shari, unfortunately, was driving so she missed the birds, which were on a hillside out of her line of sight.
We went to Brig for a quick trip (really can't be anything else with 7/8 of the drive closed) mostly to see what kind of waterfowl (or waterflow, as they say in Ohio) we could find and we weren't disappointed, starting with the entrance pond where we found Ring-necked Ducks, a wigeon, and a pair of Wood Ducks. Many Green-winged Teal were present, as were hundreds of Brant, and our first Snow Geese of the season.
Appropriately, Shari is roasting a duck for our Thanksgiving dinner.
No turkeys were found today--I was hoping one would wander onto the lawn.
Our list from Brig:
33 species
Snow Goose 200
Brant 500
Canada Goose 150
Mute Swan 1
Tundra Swan 2
Wood Duck 2 Entrance Pond
American Wigeon 1
American Black Duck 200
Mallard 25
Northern Pintail 20
Green-winged Teal 60
Ring-necked Duck 6
Great Blue Heron 4
Northern Harrier 1 Gull Pond
Cooper's Hawk 1
Bald Eagle 4 one sub-adult and two juveniles off drive, one adult in tree at Gull Pond
Red-tailed Hawk 1 Entrance Pond
American Coot 8 Gull Pond
Greater Yellowlegs 50
Lesser Yellowlegs 5
Herring Gull 100
Great Black-backed Gull 10
Mourning Dove 2 Atop Visitor's Ctr
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Heard
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 1
Carolina Chickadee 2
American Robin 5
European Starling 9
Dark-eyed Junco 2
White-throated Sparrow 5
Northern Cardinal 1 Entrance Pond
Red-winged Blackbird 20
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