Toms River 3/14--Great Egret, Wilson's Snipe

Great Egret, Cattus Island CP

Having failed 5 times to find woodcock at my reliable spot which it obviously no longer is, I found its supposedly more elusive cousin, Wilson's Snipe, almost instantly this morning at Shelter Cove. At least Shelter Cove remains reliable for that bird; I've seen them there the past few years. One zipped out of the grass, right where it was supposed to be when I was walking through the ice and mud near the little grove, and later, as I walked around the other side with Steve (who'd found the bird yesterday), we flushed it again. Or another one, who knows?

Steve told me of another spot in Toms River where he and others have been getting woodcocks no problem, but, if it seems silly to me to drive a couple of miles down the road at sunset just to hear a bird go "peent" and maybe catch a glimpse of one in the gloaming, how much sillier is it to drive 20 miles to do the same thing--and miss Jeopardy to boot! So, invoking Zirlin's Second Law of Birding, I am truly giving up on woodcock for the year.

Having gotten that year bird out of the way and after taking a tour of the goose (and deer) shitty soccer fields without finding much else exciting, I made my next stop at Cattus Island CP, where again, without any searching, I found my FOY Great Egret in the big marsh in front of the viewing platform. I wasn't really worried about eventually getting a Great Egret but it is pretty unusual for me to go into mid-March before I have a Great Egret on the list. This has been a hard winter and speculation was that the frozen marshes drove the egrets south, but then what of the Great Blue Herons of which there have been no dearth this winter? My only speculation is that the Great Blues can make do with mice and other little mammals (or even small birds) running around the icy marshes, while the Great Egret relies more on an aquatic diet.

Again, as at Shelter Cove, nothing else was of note although a male Eastern Bluebird on the way out is always a good way to end a session of birding. Naturally, later in the day, Steve had a Pine Warbler in a section of the park I didn't investigate. Pine Warbler is another bird that usually hangs around in the winter but not this one. So spring might actually happen soon.

For my two stops I had 27 species. They were:

Canada Goose   82

Mute Swan   3

Mallard   15

Bufflehead   1

Great Blue Heron   5

Great Egret   1

Turkey Vulture   1

Killdeer   4

Wilson's Snipe   1

Ring-billed Gull   2

Herring Gull   3

Great Black-backed Gull   2

Mourning Dove   7

Red-bellied Woodpecker   1

Blue Jay   2

American Crow   6

Carolina Chickadee   7

Tufted Titmouse   2

White-breasted Nuthatch   1

Eastern Bluebird   1

American Robin   10

European Starling   25

Yellow-rumped Warbler   2

White-throated Sparrow   1

Song Sparrow   4

Red-winged Blackbird   13

House Sparrow   1