Island Beach SP 4/4--Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Spizzle Creek

I knew it was just a tad too early for warblers along Reed's Road at Island Beach, but I went anyway. There are still so many "easy" birds not on my list that I felt it was inevitable that I'd run into one there. I didn't and judging from the other lists I've seen from the day, no one there saw anything I haven't. 

The "inevitable" didn't happen until my second stop, walking out from Spizzle Creek, about 8 miles down the road. There too it had been disappointing with very few birds around and nothing surprising. It was a beautiful morning, very little wind, in the mid-60's, sunny and warm enough to get the insects going which should get the birds going. But the birds have got to be there to get going. As I was leaving, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and the bird I saw was very small, so I was pretty certain it wasn't a warbler. Maybe a kinglet? It was flitting from branch to branch as kinglets will but once I saw the long tail I knew that I had a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and about time! As has been the routine this spring, the bird was persistently behind budding twigs (no doubt gleaning gnats), but I did manage one semi-clear shot. 

I made a few more stops going north. At Johnnie Allen Cove I saw a large flock of birds in the distance coming my way. I thought at first cormorants, then maybe Brant, but as they got closer I could see it was a flock of abut 40 Glossy Ibises.  That made up for the one distant bird I saw the other day at the Lighthouse Center. And it put me in mind of a funny incident quite a few years back when I was the end of Reed's Road with another birder. A large flock of glossies flew by and he, with his big machine gun-like camera, rattled off 50 shots. "Find the White-faced Ibis, in there," I joked. He went home, blew up his photos, and, wouldn't you know it, there was a White-faced Ibis flying with the glossies. This brought up the existential question of whether you could count a bird you saw but didn't know you were seeing. For me, the answer was I couldn't count it, but he could. And I think he did. 

Glossy Ibis, Johnnie Allen Cove

For the 5 stops, I made, all on the bayside, I managed 36 species. Meh. 

Brant
Mallard
Bufflehead
Red-breasted Merganser
Mourning Dove
Greater Yellowlegs
American Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Horned Grebe
Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Glossy Ibis
Snowy Egret
Great Egret
Osprey
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe
American Crow
Common Raven
Carolina Chickadee
Tree Swallow
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Brown Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Dark-eyed Junco
Song Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Boat-tailed Grackle
Yellow-rumped Warbler

Whitesbog (Ocean County) 4/3--Palm Warbler

Palm Warbler

Another dreary morning turned brighter on the Ocean County side of Whitesbog when my informant, whom I hadn't seen since mid-December, pulled up behind me as I walked the road near Big Tank. Bad weather, icy roads, vacations, medical appointments, had conspired to keep us from running into each other for the entire winter. We both thought the worse. And both our wives bugged us to text the other to find out what was up, but we're guys and guys don't do that. After he parked at his spot we started to bird and immediately he pointed out a Palm Warbler in a budding red maple right in front of us. Not with the guy 5 minutes and I get a year bird. 

Common Loon, Big Tank

As we walked back toward the Upper Reservoir, we reviewed our sightings of the last couple of months--one of my most interesting ones had just occurred at Big Tank where I found a Common Loon in breeding plumage. My informant told me that he had seen them there occasionally, but usually on the reservoir. But here's the thing: he doesn't list so officially, this was the first Common Loon sighted on the Ocean County side of Whitesbog (to county birders it is an important distinction and there are records on the Burlco side). It's similar to describing a new species--it isn't necessarily the first person to find it; it is the person who describes it for science that gets the credit. I know this all sounds silly--it is--but silly is a large part of birding if you have any sense of humor. 

So to sum up, a year bird, a patch first record, and neither of us is dead. A good morning.

Coyote Scat.
One of the advantages of walking
 with my informant is the
 natural history lesson
you get with each step.

26 species

Canada Goose  14
Wood Duck  8
Mallard  7
Ring-necked Duck  2
Bufflehead  2
Greater Yellowlegs  2     Flyover
Common Loon  1     
Double-crested Cormorant  1
Great Blue Heron  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  3
Hairy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  5
Eastern Phoebe  1
Blue Jay  1
Fish Crow  3
Carolina Chickadee  2
Tree Swallow  10
Golden-crowned Kinglet  1
Dark-eyed Junco  15
Song Sparrow  4
Swamp Sparrow  2
Red-winged Blackbird  15
Brown-headed Cowbird  2
Common Grackle  4
Palm Warbler  2
Pine Warbler  15

Bay Parkway | Lighthouse Center 4/2--White Ibis, Glossy Ibis

White Ibis, Waretown

On a thoroughly miserable morning--drizzly, cold, and windy--I was determined to get something new on the list. I started down at Eno's Pond in Forked River, thinking that I might find some new tweety birds in the woods--negative on that, but I did come across enough birds like a flock of Green-winged Teal and 3 Ospreys fighting over one platform, to keep it interesting and my mind off the damp conditions. 

Then, despite hating gusty winds, I drove down the road a few miles to Bay Parkway in Waretown to check out the marsh. After missing them last time, I found a small gathering of White Ibis feeding just off the road--not the flock of 23 that had been reported, but just 9 in my count. But you only need one. I know I've pointed this out before, but there was a time not too long ago when one White Ibis had birders running from all over the state to see it, and now flocks of them are grazing in marshes all over the southern counties. They're not even listed as rare anymore. It struck me as significant that I listed White Ibis before I had seen the much more common Glossy Ibis.  

Tricolored Herons, Lighthouse Center

Which I remedied at my next stop down in Barnegat, the Lighthouse Center. It took me a while, but after standing on top of a bench and scanning the distant marsh, I found one Glossy Ibis feeding in the spartina. It was way too distant for photographs, especially since I could barely keep my balance in the wind, but I know I'll see enough of them during the course of the year. I suppose there was a one in ten thousand chance that the brown ibis could have been a White-faced Ibis, but you have to go with the odds--otherwise, your list will be all slashes and spuhs. 

Having seen two ibises for the morning, I decided that the weather wasn't going to improve--and it didn't--so called it a day and drove back home. 

Colliers Mills 4/1--Brown Thrasher

Brown Thrasher

I guess it's going to be one at a time. I went to Colliers Mills early this morning, figuring the woods would fill in the lacunae on my year list, but as so often happens, the only new bird for the year was just a few steps away from my car. As soon as I got out, I was hit with birdsong from all points, mostly the familiar species, but there were more songs at a more rapid pace than you'd expect. And the songs were repeat twice. I walked back into the little maintenance yard hoping I could find the source--figuring it was a mimid I looked at the tops of all the trees and soon found my FOY Brown Thrasher. It's funny how you just know sometimes that the bird you're hearing is not the familiar one, but a close relative--to the naive ear, mockingbirds and thrashers sound pretty much the same, but once you become attuned to the difference, the thrasher is clearer, more articulate, and (this is the easiest part) mimics other birdsong twice, where a mockingbird tends to go thrice. Would that I could parse warbler song so easily. 

The rest of the list had a couple of interesting species on it--the Red-headed Woodpeckers were easy to find today and no playback required, and on Turnmill Lake I found two Horned Grebes, one of them already in full breeding plumage. Horned Grebes are very unusual at Colliers Mills--I thought they might be the first ones I'd seen there, but looking at my patch list, I found that I first saw them, on Turnmill, on March 31, 2015. I suppose every 11 years makes them infrequent. 

Horned Grebes

31 species
Canada Goose  7
Wood Duck  3
Mallard  3
Ring-necked Duck  2
Mourning Dove  4
Killdeer  1
Ring-billed Gull  1     Flyover
Horned Grebe  2
Great Blue Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-headed Woodpecker  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  3
Northern Flicker  7
Eastern Phoebe  1
Blue Jay  6
Carolina Chickadee  7
Tufted Titmouse  6
Brown Thrasher  1
Northern Mockingbird  1
American Robin  13
Field Sparrow  2
Dark-eyed Junco  4
White-throated Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  1
Swamp Sparrow  1
Eastern Towhee  1
Red-winged Blackbird  7
Brown-headed Cowbird  4
Pine Warbler  10
Northern Cardinal  5