Monmouth County 1/3--Trumpeter Swan, Eurasian Wigeon

Ash-throated Flycatcher, Sandy Hook
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

Snow Goose

And lots of year birds on Day 3 of 2020. Because the forecast was for intermittent lousy, Mike and I decided to try to check off as many of the rarities currently in Monmouth County as we could. We did pretty well, starting at Sandy Hook, where Mike still needed the Ash-throated Flycatcher that has been there since late last year. Not only was it a year bird for him, but a state bird as well. Unlike New Year's Day when 34 people tromping around its area made the bird elusive, today we found the bird almost immediately. I was about to turn onto the Coal Road behind the lighthouse when Mike spotted the bird on the other side of the road. Living up to its reputation, it was active, but we managed some very good looks at it and Mike managed the photo above.
Also in the area was our year Hermit Thrush, which we first heard then tracked down by following the kissing call it made.

Probably the second most interesting bird today at The Hook was a Snow Goose mixed in with a big flock of Canada Geese on the field near the old Sandy Hook Bird Observatory building. In south Jersey you'll see thousands of Snow Geese this time of year, Mike did at Brig on the first, but the farther north you go, the fewer you find which is why eBird lists the species as "Infrequently Reported" on the peninsula.

We made a stop at Lake Takanassee looking for either the Cackling Goose or Barnacle Goose which have been in the area but struck out there; the Cackler turned out to be a few blocks south but we were long gone by the time we saw the report.

We stopped at some the North Shore "lakes", where I am slightly ashamed to admit we added Muscovy Duck to our year list at Fletcher Lake in Ocean Grove. I normally wouldn't count these ducks which have made their home at this artificial pond but since I have seen them with ducklings in the warm weather I can rationalize it that they are breeding there. The population certainly isn't spreading, but it does seem stable.

Then it was on to the Shark River where, once again, a Eurasian Wigeon has taken up residence. The preferred vantage point is the parking lot of gas station, but I don't feel comfortable setting up optics on private, commercial property, so we looked for it from the edge of MacLearie Park and Mike found it, again pretty quickly, standing on the narrow beach, surrounded by Brant. Good; now unless one shows up in Ocean County, that's another bird I don't have to think about for 363 days.

We then headed west to Assunspink--Stone Tavern Lake to be exact--in order to tick off Trumpeter Swan, another annual visitor. Whether these are the same swans that appear every year, or the habitat is just attractive to the species is hard to say (probably the former), but they are reliable and, being big, real easy to find. Other year birds on the lake were Ring-necked Ducks and Common Mergansers, giving us the merganser trifecta for the day. It is fortunate that those swans are big, because in the gloaming, visibility was getting difficult.

For the day we had 59 species. I added 20 species to the year list, ranging from the mundane (European Starling, Mute Swan) to some favorite species (Cedar Waxwing at Sandy Hook, Belted Kingfisher at Lake Tak).