New Egypt 2/1--Field Sparrow

Field Sparrow, New Egypt
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

New month, new bird. Mike & I did one our county tours this morning, despite continuing frigid weather and unexpected (at least to me) light snow.

We started at Bamber Lake, where, even though it is 90% frozen, 52 Tundra Swans could still be found. They like resting on the ice. What they're eating I don't know. A couple of quick stops at spots on Sands Point showed us that finding waterfowl was going to be difficult because the bay, except for some very thin stretches of open water, has succumbed to the deep freeze.

A very cold walk along Collinstown Road in Barnegat was productive for the passerines--we had 5 Fox Sparrows, a couple of Hermit Thrushes, along with assorted nuthatches, chickadees, sparrows, finches and blackbirds. A couple of more looks at the bay in Barnegat still didn't yield any Ocean County grebes for us. A fairly quick visit to Cloverdale Farm (and its very welcome warm rest room) got us more feeder birds and our Eastern Bluebirds for the month.  We made an attempt to find a Winter Wren where the park ranger told us it had last been seen, but it was probably hunkered down deep in the reeds, keeping warm, birds being generally smarter than birders.

Our last major stop was up around the frozen mud and free range cattle of New Egypt where the sparrows were abundant and where we found my only year bird of the day, a Field Sparrow mixed in with the songs, white-throateds, and juncos.  Not a rare bird, by any means, but not an everyday bird either. No Sandhill Cranes in the stubble field (which isn't very stubbly this year) no Snow Geese, so the biggest birds we saw today were a flock of Wild Turkeys.

Finally, time was getting short as we had things to do, so we drove east along W Colliers Mills Road, because it's always been a good stretch for kestrels and sure enough I spotted one flying in the field. Conveniently it perched up on a light post, Mike got a look at it and we concluded the day on that happy note.

The month starts off with 52 species:

Species                Location

Canada Goose   Bamber Lake

Mute Swan   Sands Point Preserve

Tundra Swan   Bamber Lake

American Black Duck   Barnegat Beach

Greater Scaup   Sands Point Preserve

Long-tailed Duck   Sands Point Preserve

Bufflehead   Sands Point Preserve

Hooded Merganser   Bamber Lake

Red-breasted Merganser   Sands Point Preserve

Wild Turkey   New Egypt

Rock Pigeon   New Egypt

Mourning Dove   Sands Point Preserve

Ring-billed Gull   Sands Point Preserve

Herring Gull   Bamber Lake

Great Black-backed Gull   Sands Point Preserve

Great Blue Heron   Cloverdale Farm

Black Vulture   Pinehurst Rd

Turkey Vulture   Pinehurst Rd

Northern Harrier   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Bald Eagle   Sands Point Preserve

Red-tailed Hawk   New Egypt

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Poplar St boat ramp

Downy Woodpecker   Collinstown Rd

Hairy Woodpecker   New Egypt

Northern Flicker   New Egypt

American Kestrel   W Colliers Mill Rd

Blue Jay   Poplar St boat ramp

American Crow   New Egypt

Fish Crow   New Egypt

Carolina Chickadee   Poplar St boat ramp

Tufted Titmouse   Collinstown Rd

Red-breasted Nuthatch   Collinstown Rd

White-breasted Nuthatch   Cloverdale Farm

Carolina Wren   Collinstown Rd

Eastern Bluebird   Cloverdale Farm

Hermit Thrush   Collinstown Rd

American Robin   Bamber Lake

Northern Mockingbird   Collinstown Rd

European Starling   Barnegat Municipal Dock

House Finch   Collinstown Rd

American Goldfinch   Poplar St boat ramp

Field Sparrow   New Egypt

Fox Sparrow   Collinstown Rd

Dark-eyed Junco   Collinstown Rd

White-throated Sparrow   Poplar St boat ramp

Song Sparrow   Poplar St boat ramp

Red-winged Blackbird   E. Bay Ave

Brown-headed Cowbird   New Egypt Common Grackle  New Egypt

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Poplar St boat ramp

Northern Cardinal   Poplar St boat ramp

House Sparrow   Lower Shore Rd

We missed Mallard! How did we miss Mallard?