Manasquan River WMA | STR Cranberry Bogs 2/15--Common Raven, Chipping Sparrow

Common Raven, Cranberry Bogs, South Toms River
Click photos to enlarge

I visited a couple of places I haven't been to in quite some time. The Manasquan River WMA is about as far north as you can get in Ocean County--in fact, only half of it is this county with a large part being in Monmouth. It certainly is outside the Pine Barrens. The WMA is not heavily birded in the winter so I thought I might find a couple of overlooked birds there and I came up with two.

Gray Catbird
If you squint, you can see it.

The first, Gray Catbird, I had a notion might be there, though I had to bushwhack to find it. Despite the name, on the Ocean County side the river is not really accessible unless you're wearing hip boots since the trail that leads to it trickles away to a muddy path between and ending in impenetrable, 7 foot high phragmites, but before that there is a little path among the thickets, where last year I found my FOY Hermit Thrush and this year, in about the same spot, I came upon the catbird, one more check mark on the county list.. The tangles of bushes allow for only a suggestion of the bird in my photos. The reason I thought I might see one there is the similarity in habitat to Assunpink, where I've seen the species twice so far this year.

In spring & summer the WMA is a good place to find some of the more out of the way warblers like Hooded & Blue-winged. In winter, sparrows abound. While walking around the 2nd big field little groups flew out of the high grass into the trees on the edge of the trail. Most of them were Song Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows, but I also snagged a couple of Field Sparrows, one American Tree Sparrow, a nice reddish Fox Sparrow and, year bird alert, my first Chipping Sparrows.

22 species

Mourning Dove  1

Herring Gull  25    Flyover toward Brick Reservoir

Turkey Vulture  1

Northern Harrier  1

Red-bellied Woodpecker  2

Downy Woodpecker  5

Carolina Chickadee  3

Tufted Titmouse  4

White-breasted Nuthatch  2    Heard

Carolina Wren  3    Heard

Eastern Bluebird  2    On nest box

American Robin  100

Gray Catbird  1    

American Goldfinch  5

Chipping Sparrow  2

Field Sparrow  2

American Tree Sparrow  1

Fox Sparrow  1

White-throated Sparrow  20

Song Sparrow  15

Red-winged Blackbird  1    female near Ridge Road east of parking lot

Northern Cardinal  2    south side of first big field, near old building

Tundra Swans

On the way home I stopped at the cranberry bogs in South Toms River--the undeveloped part of Double Trouble Park. Again, not a place heavily birded (it's been almost 2 years since anyone other than me has posted an eBird list there), but I almost always find something interesting there. Interesting today included 7 Tundra Swans, one Merlin, and the Common Raven that I at first heard croaking, coming from the direction of Jake's Branch Park and then located, behind me, on a power line tower. Even my distant photos show the huge beak on this corvid and the flight shot that happenstance provided shows the wedge-shaped tail. Ravens are considered rare in the county but today alone, besides this one, Mike had three near a dealership lot in Lakewood and one was reported on the Lakehurst base, where they nest. I've heard the idea that eBird reviewers keep raven as "rare" to prevent misidentifications with either of the two crows, but I'm starting to think that in actuality, a lot of ravens are going unreported since, unless they vocalize, they can easily be mistaken as just another crow, especially if they're flying at distance.

12 species

Canada Goose  150

Tundra Swan  7    adults and immature

Mallard  4    

American Black Duck  8    Very skittish, flew from one bog to another as I walked around

Hooded Merganser  4    Two hens, two drakes

Mourning Dove  10

Turkey Vulture  3

Red-tailed Hawk  2    Saw both in sky at the same time.

Merlin  1

American Crow  1    Heard

Common Raven  1    

Carolina Wren  1    Heard entrance path

Finally, another example of Zirlin's Third Law of Birding: Wherever you are, you should be somewhere else:
While I was coming upon the Tundra Swans in the cranberry bogs, I got a text from Mike that he had an Iceland Gull at Lake of the Lilies. Iceland Gull is a nemesis bird for me, especially in Ocean County. Never seen one here, sad to say. Lake of the Lilies is 20 miles away from where my car was parked and I was one & half miles away from my car. Had he contacted me while I up north I might have considered making the trip to Point Pleasant Beach, but what were the chances that a gull would stay around for the 45 minutes it would take me to get up there? As it turns out, none, because within 10 minutes Mike let me know that a dog walker had flushed the gull that had been sitting 15 feet away. It was gone. "Which is why," I texted back, "I don't chase gulls very often."