Laurel Run Park 7/24--Sedge Wren

Sedge Wren

I've heard more Sedge Wrens than I've seen and the ones I've seen have been distant, brief, unphotographed looks, so, when the one reported at Laurel Run Park in Burlco stuck around for a third day, I got myself out there early this morning. The bird was being seen in the northwest corner of the park--technically just outside the park on the adjoining farm property and I walked directly there. I heard its bubbly song immediately upon getting in the vicinity. Interestingly, the Merlin app identified it as a Carolina Wren, because I suppose, that's the closest it could get with a bird in the New Jersey "pack" I have loaded onto it (and another example of why to heed Cornell's warning not to take what it returns as gospel). I saw the bird naked eye, then had a bit of a hard time finding it in my bins until I realized I was looking too far out into the field. The bird was singing in a little bush about 15 feet away from me. 

Grasshopper Sparrow on the site of a future soccer field

Laurel Run is one of the few areas of grassland extant around here, the place to go for Grasshopper Sparrow if you can't get onto the Lakehurst base, and home to many grassland loving birds like Indigo Bunting, Blue Grosbeak, and the occasional Dickcissel, so naturally, there are plans to mow it all down and create lawns and soccer fields. Something there is about a suburban municipality that can't stand to see "unused" land and feels compelled to turn it into an "active" recreational area rather than the passive activity of watching nature take its course. And, as Shari pointed out to me, most of the time lawns and soccer fields go unused too--in the winter, in the rain, at night--while wildlife uses the grasslands all the time 24/7, 365. Habitat loss is a major factor in decreasing bird populations, and I can't understand the rationale of developing land for housing and industry (though not really), but destroying habitat for lawns, which are green deserts? It's just wrong and worse, any argument you make to someone who wants to "develop" a property will sound like Klingon to them. 

I circled the one mile loop 3 times this morning. This is what I found:

24 species
Canada Goose  3
Mourning Dove  15
Green Heron  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  1
Willow Flycatcher  1     Fitz-bew
Blue Jay  2
Sedge Wren  1     
Carolina Wren  2
European Starling  30
Northern Mockingbird  1
American Robin  3
House Finch  1
American Goldfinch  2
Grasshopper Sparrow  4     Resident here
Chipping Sparrow  4
Field Sparrow  6
Song Sparrow  1
Red-winged Blackbird  150
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Common Grackle  1
Northern Cardinal  1
Blue Grosbeak  3
Indigo Bunting  1