Monroe Twp 6/30--Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks

Chasing on the last day of the month. Sometimes you chase a bird because it feels like an obligation to get it on the list--do I really feel like battling the greenhead flies at Brig to get the spoonbill having missed it once already? No, but I probably will. And then there are birds you chase because you really like them--the Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks I saw in Monroe Township this morning fall into that category.

Because of the "heat wave" the weathermen are trying to get us hysterical about, I originally planned to walk in one of the local cranberry bogs early in the morning, see what I saw, then come home without a boiled brain. But I changed plans when I saw the report of the BB Whistling-Ducks. I love goofy looking birds way more than so-called beautiful birds and these ducks, with their big white-wall tire eye-rings and ungainly bodies certainly qualify. So I got up early and headed up to Monroe which is in the lightly-birded southwest section of Middlesex County. I've been in the area before, but for rare geese in the winter. Because of blocked roads and imprecise GPS instructions, it took me a little longer than I expected to find the spot--a vernal pond in a corn field on the side of a county road, but once I got there I found the 10 ducks almost immediately--they made it easy by having one "sentinel" standing up watching while the others fed. I say "almost" because as I braked to a halt once I saw the pond, the first bird I saw was a Green Heron standing in the middle of the pond. It took about 10 seconds more for me to see the hunched over bodies of the ducks farther back in the grasses. I was by myself when I saw the birds, but by the time I went down the road, stopped in a parking lot to figure out where I was then turned around, there was a line of cars on the narrow shoulder. It is always amusing when a rarity shows up outside of a refuge or park because the locals become either amused or alarmed or both when suddenly there is a new roadside attraction that they can't really see. Ducks? You guys are lined up for ducks?

"Sentinel" on the left