Colliers Mills | Emson Preserve 5/3--Spotted Sandpiper, Orchard Oriole, Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting

Blue Grosbeak

I got my two target birds this morning plus two bonus birds. Of the four, only one was really a surprise and it was a disturbing example of my sketchy memory. 

At this time of year, Colliers Mills is a good place for grassland birds--it used to be better when the Grasshopper Sparrows nested there, but it's been years since they've been there--too many dogs, I suppose. But you can be fairly certain of finding Blue Grosbeaks in the fields along Success Road and today I found four of them--two in the fields and two by the police firing range.  

Orchard Oriole

Moving on from the firing range area, I was on the berm that forms the southern edge of Turnmill Pond, when I heard a garbled song and saw my first Orchard Oriole of the year, a first-year male, with a black throat and yellow chest. I didn't remember seeing Orchard Oriole at Colliers Mills. I thought it might be a patch bird. When I got home and checked my eBird records, I found it was not a patch bird. I'd seen it there before. Forty-one times before! Why do I even bother birding when the experience is obviously evanescent? I guess in the moment I enjoy it; I just don't recall it all that well. 

Solitary Sandpiper

From there I walked back to the pond that's fed by Borden's Mill Branch. There, I suspected, I would find a Spotted Sandpiper on the mud and eventually I did find one in stiff-winged flight, landing too far out to be photographed, unlike the more cooperative Solitary Sandpiper, closer in. I also heard, closer to Hawkin Road, in the usual spot by the mountain laurels, a Hooded Warbler and finally was able to see this striking bird. Previously, walking through the woods, I saw something new to me--an Ovenbird carrying nesting material. Pete used to say that Ovenbird was the most common nesting warbler in NJ. Judging from the singing birds all along my route, they're pretty ensconced in Colliers Mills. 

Ovenbird

I was still missing one target bird, but I was fairly confident I could rectify that with a five-minute drive to the Emson Preserve. There, in the tree line that runs up the driveway to the parking lot, I was able to see and hear two Indigo Buntings. If I can't find them at Colliers, Emson is my fallback spot. 

Now a digression regarding "indigo." To begin, I don't know why these birds have "indigo" as their modifier. If you look at the color I've used for Indigo Bunting, it is more a purple than the deep blue the bird actually is. In short, Indigo Buntings are not indigo. Which is find because, as a color, indigo is a problem.

In my former life in the printing biz, I had to deal with color a lot. I know color theory. (And believe me, it is really a theory, not a law.) Many of you, in grade school, learned that the colors of the rainbow were ROY G. BIV--red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. That's how Newton described the colors he saw when he separated white light with a prism. There's only one flaw. Indigo doesn't exist in the rainbow. Newton only put it in there because he thought the colors had to have symmetry with the musical notes--there are seven musical notes, thus there had to be seven colors. Genius. 

Let me show you why indigo doesn't exist, using a box of Crayolas. If you put ROY G. BIV on a wheel, you will see that RED & YELLOW yield ORANGE, YELLOW & BLUE yield GREEN, BLUE & RED yield VIOLET. There is no room for indigo on the color wheel. While I love the Indigo Bunting, I hate the name. Let's not even get into the fact that it isn't truly a bunting either!

The Colliers Mills list of 42 species.

Canada Goose  6
Mallard  6
Mourning Dove  2
Chimney Swift  1     Lake
Killdeer  3
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Solitary Sandpiper  1
Laughing Gull  20     Flyover
Turkey Vulture  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  3
Eastern Wood-Pewee  4
Eastern Phoebe  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  5
White-eyed Vireo  3
Warbling Vireo  1
Red-eyed Vireo  3
Blue Jay  6
Tufted Titmouse  2
Barn Swallow  4
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  3
Carolina Wren  2
Gray Catbird  10
Northern Mockingbird  1
Wood Thrush  3
American Robin  7
Chipping Sparrow  3
Field Sparrow  1
White-throated Sparrow  1
Eastern Towhee  6
Orchard Oriole  1
Baltimore Oriole  1
Red-winged Blackbird  20
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Ovenbird  10
Black-and-white Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  7
Hooded Warbler  1    
Pine Warbler  3
Prairie Warbler  3
Blue Grosbeak  4