Show me a flock of 500 Snow Geese and I'll never pick out the rarity. Show me two white geese and I'll take a longer look at them. This morning, at Whitesbog, I was counting the Canada Geese and Tundra Swans in the lower bog when I saw two white geese among the brown ones. As I couldn't recall ever having seen Snow Geese at Whitesbog, I thought that was pretty interesting to up my patch list. Then I noticed that the geese were "cute." They had small bills, round heads. They didn't look goofy like Snow Geese. Naturally, I didn't have my scope with me. After I took some pictures and blew them up on the preview screen of my camera I was pretty certain that I had not one, but TWO Ross's Geese. I sent one of those pictures via text message off to one of the Burlco experts (the wonders of technology) and he confirmed what I thought I had.
As I've never seen more than one Ross's Goose at a time, seeing two was extraordinary for me. There are a couple of rarer geese up north that for various reasons I haven't felt like chasing, so finding my own rarity alleviated any nagging feeling about what I should be doing as opposed to what I felt like doing.
Walking around the Ocean County side, I came across a new water feature that I don't know how I feel about. Across from the NW corner of the Upper Reservoir there is a bog that sometimes has interesting ducks in it. I walk around it about half the time I'm there--it's also good for bluebirds and yellowthroats in the appropriate seasons. Today there was a lot of heavy equipment rolling around the roads--between the 3 inches of rain and the treads of the excavators the roads are a complete mess. I was actually sinking into the wet sand in the middle of the road as I walked and these roads are usually hard enough to safely drive a little sedan on. At first I noticed that they had cleared out a lot of brush and trees which I thought was okay as it would make viewing easier. When I got halfway around the bog, though, I saw that it had been breached, with water pouring in from the marsh on the other side of the road. I have no idea why this was done (or exactly who is doing it, the state or the farmer who leases the bogs) and I have no idea what birds this new development will attract or repel. All I know is that one of my walk options is gone and the cut right now is ugly.
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