Brig 8/25--Marbled Godwit, Hudsonian Godwit

Hudsonian Godwit

                            Don't look for the bird, look for the birders
                                                                             --Birding Law #4 

The other day I was talking to Bob Auster on the phone. He'd just been down to Brig and said he'd seen something there he'd never seen before: A Marbled Godwit and an Hudsonian Godwit in the same scope view. Come to think of it, neither had I, and since I had neither bird for the year, I went godwit chasing. 

 According to the information on eBird, the birds were around Goose Marker 15, which is about 3/4 of the way around the Wildlife Drive. Instead of taking my walk first, which is how I usually approach my trips to Brig, I drove directly to that area--more or less the same place that the phalaropes were being seen a couple of weeks ago. There were shorebirds in the shallows and on the mud, including one Wilson's Phalarope (no longer flagged as rare this time of year), but of godwits there were none. With sigh and a groan, I continued on to Jen's Trail, parked the car and started my walk from there to the Gull Pond and back, with the only notable birds being a large flock of White Ibis that flew into the trees by the Gull Pond. 

Immature White Ibises with Great Egret

The White Ibis situation in New Jersey has gotten out of hand. Time it was (and what a time it was) when one White Ibis anywhere in the state was an alert-worthy bird and the optics came running. Now, at Brig, I estimated 225 White Ibis in the trees, in the pools, and in the marshes across the channels. And that wasn't even the high count (estimate) for the day. And they were probably 95% immature birds, which means that they're a breeding bird in the state. There were far more White Ibis than there were Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets and both night-herons combined.  Glossy Ibis? I saw none, though another birder listed 10. Brig is not that far, as the ibis flies, from the Ocean City rookery, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's where these birds originated. All great for the White Ibis, but not so great if you're a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, which used to nest in big numbers there and have been pushed out by the newcomers. There are only so many trees in the rookery.

Returning to the car, I drove back to the start of the Wildlife Drive and did some actual shorebirding. As would be expected this time of year, Semipalmated Sandpipers abounded in take-a-guess numbers and random surveys of the flocks turned up the usual shorebirds, including a few White-rumped Sandpipers, in smaller numbers. I'm certain there were Western Sandpipers in there, but none with obvious field marks stood out to me, no surprise. 

On a Monday, there weren't that many people there, which is good in one way, bad if you're hoping for a better set of eyes than yours. But at the dogleg I saw a vehicle parked and two scopes on the road, so I pulled over. The scopers turned out to be a couple of birding friends from Ocean County who I hadn't seen in a long time and, even better, they had both godwits in view. I got the Marbled Godwit first and then a second one was called to my attention. Meanwhile, the Hudsonian was in sight for a moment and then we lost it and after a few false sightings that turned out to Short-billed Dowitchers, we found it again. The Hudsonian had retreated to the mud and was standing there, preening, when one of the Marbled Godwits came up to it and casually moved it away, like a bully bumping you in the bar because he can and whaddya gonna do about it? So, I had my two species of godwits (and 50% of the godwit species in the world) in one scope view. Goal achieved. Unfortunately, distance and shimmer made for poor pictures but the slight upturned bills were no doubters.

For the two loops I had 60 species, pretty good, I thought, until I looked at the list of one guy who birds there almost every day--he had 99 which is by my precise calculations, 65% better.  Anyway, here's what I got:

Canada Goose  20
Mute Swan  30
Blue-winged Teal  4
Mallard  125
Mourning Dove  4
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1
Clapper Rail  2
American Avocet  4
Semipalmated Plover  4
Hudsonian Godwit  1     
Marbled Godwit  2
Short-billed Dowitcher  150
Wilson's Phalarope  1
Lesser Yellowlegs  20
Greater Yellowlegs  50
Ruddy Turnstone  2
White-rumped Sandpiper  4
Least Sandpiper  2
Semipalmated Sandpiper  1000
Laughing Gull  200
American Herring Gull  25
Black Skimmer  75
Caspian Tern  25
Forster's Tern  125
Common Tern  2
Double-crested Cormorant  250
White Ibis  225     
Yellow-crowned Night Heron  1
Black-crowned Night Heron  3
Snowy Egret  30
Great Egret  100
Great Blue Heron  8
Osprey  3
Cooper's Hawk  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  2
Eastern Phoebe  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  1
Eastern Kingbird  1
Blue Jay  3
American Crow  20
Fish Crow  2
Common Raven  1     Croaking. Mobbed by crows
Carolina Chickadee  2
Tufted Titmouse  2
Tree Swallow  20
Barn Swallow  25
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Carolina Wren  1
European Starling  50
Gray Catbird  8
Northern Mockingbird  1
House Sparrow  1
American Goldfinch  4
Seaside Sparrow  1
Saltmarsh Sparrow  1
Red-winged Blackbird  100
Boat-tailed Grackle  2
Northern Cardinal  1