Marshall's Pond 1/15--Cackling Goose

I don't like puzzles. When I see someone doing a jigsaw puzzle, my eyes glaze over. I'm not interested in finding the six differences between two seemingly identical pictures. I don't care where Waldo is. 

So when Steve texted me this afternoon that the Cackling Goose was back at Marshall's Pond, I was almost glad that I was stuck in the house waiting for a repairman to show up, because looking for a cackler in a spread-out flock of 300 Canada Geese is not an easy puzzle to solve. 

Back in December I ran over to the same pond to get a Cackling Goose, but whether this is the same one or another (there may even be two, judging from one of my photos where a second small goose seems to be photobombing me), who knows. My friend Bob Auster claims that if you look at any large flock of Canada Geese, you'll probably find a Cackler. Where's Waldo? Maybe he's there and maybe he isn't. 

Goose the size of a Mallard

But a couple of hours later, I was free to go and since I already had the rarer Greater White-fronted Goose and Ross's Goose on the year list, I figured it was worth a drive into Toms River. Marshall's Pond isn't all that large and the geese tend to congregate in its western section, so they're fairly close to the edge of the water and Steve had given me a landmark where he had last seen the bird but even with all those advantages, it still took me over 20 minutes to finally locate the cackler in the honking, ever-shifting flock of Canada Geese. It was a Mallard that helped me. In the middle of the flock the duck was floating around and right next to it was a goose no bigger than it--and then I saw the stubby bill and the short neck and knew I had the cackler, but if it hadn't been next to the duck, I'd probably never have found it, because all the geese are in different positions, sometimes stretching their necks, sometimes hunkering down, sometimes scooping water, sometimes having their heads tucked into their wings. But a goose the size of a duck? Puzzle solved. 

Red-shouldered Hawk

The other cool bird of the day came in the morning when I was knocking around Jackson. After a couple of unexciting walks through some local spots there, I drove over to Butterfly Bogs where there are usually a lot of ducks--I was hoping for something new but I all I saw were the expected species--lots of them, but nothing new. I went back to the car and as I was opening up the hatch I turned to my right and saw, low in a tree not 15 feet away from me, a Red-shouldered Hawk, apparently oblivious to my presence. I quietly put my scope in the back of the car, got my camera off my shoulder and took some photos of a bird I more often hear ("keer, keer, keer") than see, and certainly have never seen this close. Not a rarity, but a nice little exclamation point on an otherwise dull morning.