Brig 11/26--Lapland Longspur

Lapland Longspur

We always talk about "chasing" a bird, but here's one where I really did go back and forth to find it. The forecast was for rain today but I thought I might be able to get a turn around the dikes at Brig before the weather got wet and if not...at least I'd be in the car.

I'd been seeing reports of a Lapland Longspur on the south dike for the past few days, but Thanksgiving visits and visitors precluded me from getting down there. The sightings seemed to be between goose markers 8 and 10, so my plan was to park the car just before 8 and walk the dike, looking for sparrows feeding on the side of the road. A combination of high tide and all the rain we've had lately put the marshes on both sides of the drive under water, which meant the only place for sparrows to feed would be on the road. I had walked from #8 to #9 when a birder I know pulled up in her car. She was very excited because she'd just seen a Horned Lark back by #8 (of course) and was talking to a mutual friend of ours on her phone to tell him about it. I told her (and him through her phone) that I was looking for the longspur. But he told me I was way too far up the road, that the bird was just past the observation tower.

Snow Geese

So I turned around. While the water, as I said, was very high, the variety of waterfowl was not. I did see my first Snow Geese of the season numbering in the hundreds, as well as Brant, Canada Geese and American Black Ducks, but other waterfowl was sparse, though I did get two species of grebe.

Horned Grebes

I was just about back to my car, looking at a couple of Horned Grebes, searching for the Horned Lark, when I heard a car approaching me from behind. Looking up I saw my friend backing up the road. "I found the bird," she said. It was, naturally, up the road, not far from where we'd been talking.

I got in her car and we hurried up the drive. On the side of the road were a few birds. In the murky light light it was tough to tell what was what and then one bird flew away. With my luck, I figured that would be the longspur, but we saw a couple of other birds a little further along and one of them, at least, was the longspur. She thought both were, but we never could get both birds to stand still at the same time. The one I was looking at, besides having the dark auriculars around the face, had chestnut coloring on the wings. The other didn't, though it did not appear light enough to be a Savannah Sparrow.

First longspur I saw, note the chestnut coloring on wing

                                                                                Thanking her for the ride, I turned around again toward my car, still hoping to snag the lark. I walked all the way back to the observation tower  and never found the lark, nor much of anything else new, though I did see one Savannah Sparrow that I though might possibly be the Ipswich subspecies but it flew off too quickly for me to decide. Just as I reached my car the rain started.

I drove very slowly up the drive, hoping to see the sparrows again and just before marker #10 I saw a bird on the left. I got out in the rain and took a photograph of it (the one above that starts this entry) and noticed that it didn't seem to have the same coloration as the first one I saw so who knows, maybe there are two there, or maybe it was just a trick of the lousy light.

Peregrine Falcon

The rain got heavier as I drove around the dikes, but I did manage a few more ducks and a couple of Peregrine Falcons, no longer a given there since their hacking tower was removed.   Since there was no mud, there were no shorebirds, but there were also no swans, no wigeons, no Wood Ducks. I only saw 32 species, but I did get one more year bird. I was surprised to find that it was the first longspur I'd seen in two years and even more surprised, when consulting my eBird list, to find that it was a new bird for me in Atlantic County. My little list follows.

Snow Goose 500
Brant 300
Canada Goose 200
Northern Shoveler 4 3 hens off south dike, 1 drake off east dike
Gadwall 2 Perch Cove
Mallard 60
American Black Duck 600
Northern Pintail 3 North dike
Ring-necked Duck 4 Exit and entrance ponds
Bufflehead 15
Hooded Merganser 2 Turtle Cove
Ruddy Duck 55 25 in overlook
Pied-billed Grebe 2
Horned Grebe 6 Turtle Cove
Ring-billed Gull 5
Herring Gull 150
Great Black-backed Gull 13
Great Blue Heron 2 SE Pool
Great Egret 1
Northern Harrier 2
Peregrine Falcon 2
Blue Jay 1 Heard
American Crow 2
Carolina Chickadee 2 Heard
Tufted Titmouse 3 Visitor's Ctr
American Robin 13
European Starling 50
Lapland Longspur 1
Savannah Sparrow 4
Song Sparrow 1
Red-winged Blackbird 2 Exit Pond

Northern Cardinal 2 Near exit pond