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