Sandy Hook 10/6--Tennessee Warbler

Naturally, now that with the arrival of Yellow-rumps, warbler season is over and I've "moved on" to sparrows, I would have one of my better warbler days at Sandy Hook, including a new addition to the year list. I drove up for one of Scott's half-day Fridays. We took the usual walk from Guardian Park down to Horseshoe Cove and back, with a good number of warblers in the still mostly fully-leafed trees, which made identification tricky and led me to miss a couple. We also came across some nice FOS birds (for me), like Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Brown Creeper (a personal fave), and White-crowned Sparrow.  However, the sparrow I would have really liked to have seen--Lincoln's Sparrow--proved elusive. Twice. I missed it once in the scrubby field across from the Guardian Park lot and once up at "the pit" near the ferry station.

We had gone up to the pit because Scott had received a report of interesting birds there--this is the site of the Lark Bunting which made an appearance there last year for 2 days. We couldn't find any of the neat birds that had been there earlier, but warblers were flitting about. To get a look at them required a certain amount of bushwhacking through hip high vegetation and I wasn't getting very good looks at anything. Finally, a very drab warbler, with no distinguishing field marks, a bird you might say looked like an undecorated model of a warbler before its paint was applied, finally stood out on a branch long enough for me to see that it didn't look like much of anything which is how I was able to satisfy myself that I had seen a Tennessee Warbler for the first time this year. Not a bird to make your heart go all fluttery, just one for the list. Compared to a Tennessee Warbler, a Connecticut Warbler is practically flamboyant.

No photos of course.

For my 5 hours at the hook I listed 49 species, including 9 warbler species. I'm getting the feeling I may miss the more sought after sparrows this year.

Merlin

Canada Goose 150 Guardian Park
Double-crested Cormorant 24
Great Blue Heron 3
Snowy Egret 1 Horseshoe Cove
Turkey Vulture 1 Plum Island
Osprey 1 Spermaceti
Cooper's Hawk 1
Black-bellied Plover 25 Horseshoe Cove
Ring-billed Gull 1 Horseshoe Cove
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 40
Royal Tern 2
Rock Pigeon 10
Mourning Dove 5
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Heard
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1 Guardian Park
Downy Woodpecker 2 Heard
Northern Flicker 2
Merlin 3 Two not getting along on Road to Nowhere, one at "the pit"
Eastern Phoebe 2
Red-eyed Vireo 2
American Crow 1
Black-capped Chickadee 1 Heard
Brown Creeper 1 Guardian Park
Carolina Wren 3 Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1 Heard
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 2
Northern Mockingbird 2
European Starling 23
Cedar Waxwing 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 1
American Redstart 1
Northern Parula 4
Bay-breasted Warbler 2
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
White-crowned Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 5
Song Sparrow 2
Swamp Sparrow 2
Eastern Towhee 4 Heard
Northern Cardinal 1
Red-winged Blackbird 9