Great Bay Blvd 6/16--Caspian Tern

Caspian Terns

To paraphrase Pete Seeger: 

                There is a season tern tern tern. 

Because migration is over and most of the shorebirds are up north, I have spent an inordinate amount of time the last couple of weeks looking for terns missing from the year list, without, until today, much luck. Everybody and his uncle have managed to find Roseate Tern except for me and I there has even been a Sandwich Tern reported but despite walks on the beaches of Barnegat Light and Island Beach, the best I've come up with is a large number of Royal Terns. (This is starting to remind me of a former Jersey birder who used to catalog in her Listserv missives the birds she didn't see--I once kept a spreadsheet of her misses--it was impressive. So, onto what I did see.) 

I went down to Great Bay Blvd this morning. There is a spot about 1/2 mile north of the first bridge, that looks out onto Tuckerton Cove. I've been able to find Caspian Terns there for the past few years--and my luck held this morning. As soon as I crossed the road and put up my bins, I saw two loafing at the edge of the water. Scope views confirmed them not to be Royal Terns, and so the day had taken a tern for the better. 

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

It's June so I didn't expect much from the rest of the Boulevard. The only shorebirds present were many vocal Willets. In one of cedar groves both flavors of night-herons were roosting (or were until they sensed my presence). Yellow-crowned Night-Heron can be a difficult bird to find but there were at least four of them in the grove today--3 immature and a very handsome adult. 

There were lots of fishermen on the beach, so that put the kibosh on any activity there aside from the many buzzing Seaside Sparrows. Walking and driving for 4+ miles of road and beach I managed 28 species for the day--not bad for a "shoulder month." 

Mourning Dove  8
Clapper Rail  1
Willet  14
Laughing Gull  70
American Herring Gull  10
Caspian Tern  2     
Forster's Tern  6
Double-crested Cormorant  1
Yellow-crowned Night Heron  4
Black-crowned Night Heron  8
Tricolored Heron  1
Snowy Egret  10
Great Egret  18
Osprey  2
Willow Flycatcher  3
Eastern Kingbird  1     Beginning of road
Fish Crow  1
Tree Swallow  2
Northern Rough-winged Swallow  1     Roadside
Barn Swallow  25
Marsh Wren  2
Gray Catbird  4
Seaside Sparrow  12
Song Sparrow  6
Red-winged Blackbird  35
Boat-tailed Grackle  15
Common Yellowthroat  5
Northern Yellow Warbler  1