Great Bay Blvd 12/11--Western Kingbird

Finally.

After 5 fruitless trips to Tip Seaman Park since one, then two Western Kingbirds were discovered there on 11/21, the reports stopped coming and I thought the whole nightmarish episode was behind me. Then yesterday, after about a week-long lull, one was discovered on Great Bay Blvd 3 or 4 miles south of Tip Seaman, hanging around the Rutgers Wind Monitoring Station (the one that incessantly beeps). I, of course, was in Pemberton at the time; too far to go there and get back to do the afternoon chores on my schedule. 

Today, while I was wandering around Whitesbog, Steve texted me that the bird had been refound. I was pretty far from my car and Whitesbog is a good hour away from Tuckerton. I replied that if I went, and didn't find the bird for the sixth time, I would be so pissed that it was better just not to go. He & I were conceivably the only two birders in the county who hadn't eyeballed the bird.  Until about 1 o'clock that is, which is when, as I was sitting down to lunch, Steve texted me:

I got it!

And then there was one. Me. 

Birding is supposed to be fun. Birding is not a job. Birding is not an obligation. But birding is also an obsession and when you are idiotically obsessed with the number of birds you have encountered in a specific county then not having a bird on your list overrides the "fun" aspect of birding. I got in the car and drove the 30 miles to Tuckerton, with, helpfully, Steve giving me updates of the bird's whereabouts via text. Just as I was getting on Great Bay off of Rt 9, he texted met that was leaving and that the bird was out of sight at the moment but was last seen across the road from the Rutgers site. 

As I was barreling down GBB the road was getting murkier with bay fog (warm today) but I didn't see Steve's car coming from the opposite direction. When I, literally, screeched to a halt at the fence of the station, Steve was still there. The bird had just been up and then had flown to the back of the cedar grove. 

We kind of dithered around for a few minutes, trying to get an angle on where we might see the bird from the back. I walked toward the road while Steve stayed near the water where he could keep an eye on the fence too. In a minute he called out that the bird was up. Brief moment of panic for me. Up where? Something flew by my head. Then, perched on a cedar, there was the *&^% bird. 

9 minutes. That's what my eBird "list" of one bird records as my time. But I have never worked so hard for one stinking bird in the all years I've been a birder. It is embarrassing to me how the failure to find it all those previous trips was coloring my mood; if I had had a dog, I would have kicked it. 

And now that it is on the list, that bird is dead to me. I don't care if I see it again. Unless, of course, it hangs around until January. Good year bird for the county.