Great Bird Names

One of the ancillary pleasures of birding is the common names of birds. I've spent hours scrolling through the species list on eBird, finding funny, weird names of birds. Some of them are highly, one might say, overly descriptive, some are opaque. Below is a list, in no special order (except for the cisticolas) of some of my favorites:

Perplexing Scrubwren
Mysterious Starling (Extinct)
Monotonous Lark
Elusive Antpitta
Inaccessible Island Finch
Inaccessible Island Rail (If the island is inaccessible, how do they know about the birds?)
Invisible Rail (sightings: 0)
 
Cisticolas: (Birds with check marks are one I have seen)

Bubbling

Chattering

Chirping

Churring

üCroaking   

Foxy

Piping

üRattling

Siffling

Singing

Tinkling

Trilling

Wailing

Whistling

Winding

üWing-snapping

üZitting

 
 
Happy Wren
Strange Weaver
Obscure Berrypecker
Twite (Banding code: TWIT)
Aberrant Bush-Warbler
Leaf-love
Melancholy Woodpecker
Monotonous Lark
Fearful Owl
Supertramp Fantail
Cinderella Waxbill
Exclamatory Paradise-Whydah
Vampire Ground-Finch 

Graveling Point | Great Bay Blvd 5/11--Red Knot, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Black Skimmer, Least Tern, Common Tern, Saltmarsh Sparrow

Saltmarsh Sparrow

I was in the mood for mud flats, so I head down to Tuckerton. I thought I'd see what Graveling Point was like in warm weather--on the few occasions I've birded there, it has been mostly for ducks in the winter.  Graveling Point, at the end of Radio Road, is yet another piece of Forsythe NWR. During the winter, when the vegetation is brown, you can walk easily toward the middle of the peninsula or come around the back of the pond that is fed by a mosquito ditch, but today I was forced to walk the edges of the point, which was fine, because I was flushing up shorebirds at a rapid rate. Short-billed Dowitchers were the most common, but I kicked up at least 7 Spotted Sandpipers (according to eBird a new species for the site), along with a bunch of Least Sandpipers and Dunlins. I also had my first Least Tern of the year, a quick flyby, and most amusing to me, my first Green Heron in Ocean County this year. The pond was empty today except for a lone Mallard, or so it seemed, because when I got back to the parking lot, I thought, "Eh, let just look in here for a minute, and there, in the reeds, was the heron. All the usual places I've looked so far this year I couldn't find one, but here, where I wasn't looking for one, I of course find one. 

Green Heron, Graveling Point

I then drove up and around and got onto Great Bay Blvd. I wasn't going to stop at Tuckerton Cove but then I thought of finding the Green Heron in an unlikely spot and it occurred to me that when I've seen Black Skimmers in Tuckerton they've always been roosting in the northern parts of the WMA, so I pulled over, walked through the vegetal entanglements and had barely put up my binoculars when I had 5 skimmers loafing on a sandbar. They got up and flew and they were the only 5 I saw today. 

Red Knots

Ruddy Turnstone

Every stop I made today along the road I had big, mixed flocks of shorebirds, mostly dowitchers and Least Sandpipers. I kept scoping the flocks of leasts concentrating on their legs, but it wasn't until I was more than halfway down that I finally found a sandpiper with black legs that weren't just mud--bigger and grayer too--a single Semipalmated Sandpiper. I was disappointed that neither of the night-herons were roosting in the cedar stands or feeding in the marshes--in fact, the only waders I saw were both white egrets. I got down to the end of the road and went onto the mud flats of Great Bay. I was looking for Red Knots and after walking as far out on the mud flats as I've ever gone, I scoped two of them. Very unsatisfactory--I could list them but, as they're an endangered (sub)species, I'd prefer to get better views while I can. I turned around and walk to the other side of the flats, toward the Rutgers facility. On the pilings terns were roosting--a couple of Least Terns, and my first Common Terns of the year. I went about as far as I could on the mud flat without trespassing onto the Rutgers property. In a shallow there was a small flock of knots, along with more Dunlins and some Ruddy Turnstones. Now I had good looks at these robust sandpipers. 

Least Tern, Great Bay

I then turned my attention to the spartina grass behind me. I was seeing a lot of sparrows flying up and diving down into the grass, but every time I glassed them, they'd turn out to be Song Sparrows. I just knew that Saltmarsh Sparrow was there somewhere, but since its "song" is more of a buzzy whisper, I didn't have much chance of following the sound. So I cheated. I played a recording and bang! one came out to pose for me. In a few months I'll have to do the same thing for Nelson's Sparrow.  Since they stick close to the ground and run around like mice, whether it's better to try for them during high tide or low tide is a debate. Low tide and there is more area to search. High tide and there is less search area but you'll probably get your feet wet stepping into a mud puddle you didn't see while pursuing a fleeting bird. 

45 species on the day:

Brant
Canada Goose
Mallard
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Clapper Rail
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Short-billed Dowitcher
Spotted Sandpiper
Lesser Yellowlegs
Willet
Greater Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Dunlin
Least Sandpiper
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Laughing Gull
American Herring Gull
Black Skimmer
Least Tern
Forster's Tern
Common Tern
Double-crested Cormorant

Black-crowned Night Heron
Snowy Egret
Green HeronGreat Egret
Osprey
Fish Crow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Northern House Wren
Marsh Wren
Carolina Wren
Gray Catbird
Seaside Sparrow
Saltmarsh Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Boat-tailed Grackle
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow Warbler
Northern Cardinal

Northern House Wren, Great Bay Blvd

Cedar Bridge Tavern CP 5/7--American Redstart

American Redstart

Another warbler. I don't visit Cedar Bridge Tavern (which dates to Revolutionary War times) County Park very often, so I was pleased to see that since my last visit they have hacked out and completed a very good 3 1/2-mile trail through the pines that crosses and recrosses Old Cedar Bridge Road. I was also pleased to find so many warblers along the trail--10 different species including supposedly hard to find Hooded Warblers and Blue-winged Warblers  & my first American Redstart of the year. Finding it was similar to the Blackpoll Warbler yesterday at Whitesbog. When I em
erged onto the road, I thought perhaps I was hearing a distant Veery, so I opened up the Merlin app and let it listen. It never picked up the ethereal call of that thrush (which was one of my motives for going there) but it did list the redstart. I looked around and didn't see the bird at first and redstart is one of those "songs" that isn't emblazoned in my memory. So, I played back what Merlin had recorded, and when it highlighted American Redstart, I looked around again. Suddenly one flew in. Damn, maybe Merlin isn't as unreliable as I think it is. In the shadows of the trees I wasn't able to get much of a picture of the bird, but I was happy to find it. Redstart is one of those birds that I used to see a lot more when I lived in Brooklyn, an easy bird in Prospect Park or at Jamaica Bay. At Jamaica Bay they were so common that Shari & I used to refer to them as YAR--Yet Another Redstart. 

A decent morning with 35 species, but not the target bird. 

Canada Goose  9
Mourning Dove  2
Turkey Vulture  3
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Hairy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  3
White-eyed Vireo  5
Red-eyed Vireo  1     Heard
American Crow  1
Carolina Chickadee  1
Tufted Titmouse  2
Tree Swallow  5
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  4
Carolina Wren  1
Gray Catbird  20
Eastern Bluebird  1
Wood Thrush  3
American Robin  4
House Finch  3
Chipping Sparrow  3
Eastern Towhee  5
Ovenbird  4
Blue-winged Warbler  2
Black-and-white Warbler  4
Common Yellowthroat  1
Hooded Warbler  3
American Redstart  1
Northern Parula  1
Yellow Warbler  1
Pine Warbler  4
Prairie Warbler  10
Northern Cardinal  2

Whitesbog 5/6--Green Heron, Blackpoll Warbler

Green Heron

 A late-night Mets game in Arizona and early morning rain combined for a delayed start this morning, and as the weather looked iffy along the coast, I just drove over to Whitesbog. This time of year, I usually park at the county line and then decide which way I want to go--this morning it into Burlco to start. Union Pond is low enough to have some mud and said along the edges and close to the road and while I was driving in I saw shorebirds flying about. Walking back to it, I saw 3 Least Sandpipers working the little bit of exposed mud. It's early for them at Whitesbog but I see them as a harbinger of summer if the bogs get drained. I also had a Killdeer fly over and saw at the back of the pond, a Spotted Sandpiper fly from one mud flat to the other. 

Then I went into Ditch Meadow, but unfortunately, the beavers have been at work and the trail requires high rubber boots. I walked around Union Pond to the other entrance to Ditch Meadow, and still didn't see much until I did--my first Green Heron of the year flew right in front of me and posed in a tree. I didn't feel like going into the village, so I stuck to the bogs, working my way back to the county line, and crossing over into Ocean County where I hoped I could find another Green Heron to add to my county list. I searched in most of the likely places without going back to the Antrim Bogs and didn't have any luck. But I did add one more bird to year list.

Normally, I use the Merlin app to confirm what I think I'm hearing because ever since the app "heard" a Prothonotary Warbler in my backyard, I haven't completely trusted its reliability. Today, on the cross dike, I thought I heard the high buzz of a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (amazingly, I can hear that bird) but only for a second, so I opened up Merlin and let it listen. It confirmed the gnatcatcher, and then a lot of easy birds started popping up--Common Yellowthroat, Red-winged Blackbird, Gray Catbird...Blackpoll Warbler! Whenever Merlin records a mimid, I tend to not take any of the birds it hears seriously--a couple of weeks ago on Island Beach it "heard" a Tufted Titmouse that a Brown Thrasher was doing an excellent imitation of and there are no titmice on Island Beach. I laugh and groan whenever I see someone's eBird list with the notation "Confirmed by Merlin." 

Not that Blackpoll Warbler is rare per se but since it is out of my hearing range, it a very difficult warbler for me to track down. I played the recording back and even when the sonogram indicated that it was playing the warbler's song, I couldn't hear it. So just as I was shrugging my shoulders, a bird flew into the top of a cedar. I got my bins on it and Holy Smokes it was a Blackpoll. Not the first one I've had there, but you can now count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've listed it at that patch. 

Still didn't get the Green Heron for the county though. 

For both sides of the line, 40 species:

Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Mallard
American Black Duck
Mourning Dove
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Green Heron
Turkey Vulture
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
White-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
Fish Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Carolina Wren
Gray Catbird
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Orchard Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Common Grackle
Ovenbird
Black-and-white Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Blackpoll Warbler
Pine Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Northern Cardinal

Pine Dust on Big Tank

Manahawkin WMA 5/4--White-faced Ibis

White-faced Ibis, fifth from left

 A hard bird to distinguish, I was lucky today to be with two good birders while surveying a flock of about 175 Glossy Ibis in the first impoundment at Manahawkin. The ibises were very skittish, flying in and out of the pool, going over the road to the Forsythe property where they would bury themselves in the reeds. Eventually though, and fairly close in, D. found a White-faced Ibis, one of the two that had been reported there yesterday. And unlike most White-faced Ibis, this one was obvious, with red legs, a big red eyeball, and significant white around the face. Last year, when there were four of these birds in the same impoundment, I spent a couple of hours with J. (who was also there), looking through the ibis flock up against the reeds on the opposite shore and finally was able to convince myself that one of them was a White-faced Ibis. Today I had no qualms. It is a pretty amazing turnabout that now, White-faced Ibis is rarer in New Jersey than White Ibis. Years ago, I found one White Ibis at Manahawkin and the birders came a-running. Today, they'd just shrug and say, "Yeah, I saw 15 of them at Spizzle Creek." 

Enlarged & cropped

It was a blustery March day on Star Wars Day (May the Fourth etc.), cloudy, windy, cold, and then, after I started to walk up to Hilliard, it started to rain, so I had to turn around before I could complete my route. Thus, a short list. But the "one cool bird a day" requirement was fulfilled. 

29 species
Mute Swan  2
Mallard  3
Green-winged Teal  2     Back impoundment
Solitary Sandpiper  2
Lesser Yellowlegs  30     Close estimate. Most in back impoundment
Willet  2
Greater Yellowlegs  5
Least Sandpiper  10
American Herring Gull  5
Forster's Tern  10
Glossy Ibis  175
White-faced Ibis  1     
Little Blue Heron  1
Tricolored Heron  4
Snowy Egret  5
Great Egret  10
Great Blue Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Eastern Kingbird  1
White-eyed Vireo  1
Gray Catbird  1
American Robin  1
Seaside Sparrow  2
Song Sparrow  3
Orchard Oriole  2
Red-winged Blackbird  30
Common Yellowthroat  3

Yellow Warbler  2 

Colliers Mills | Emson Preserve 5/3--Spotted Sandpiper, Orchard Oriole, Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting

Blue Grosbeak

I got my two target birds this morning plus two bonus birds. Of the four, only one was really a surprise and it was a disturbing example of my sketchy memory. 

At this time of year, Colliers Mills is a good place for grassland birds--it used to be better when the Grasshopper Sparrows nested there, but it's been years since they've been there--too many dogs, I suppose. But you can be fairly certain of finding Blue Grosbeaks in the fields along Success Road and today I found four of them--two in the fields and two by the police firing range.  

Orchard Oriole

Moving on from the firing range area, I was on the berm that forms the southern edge of Turnmill Pond, when I heard a garbled song and saw my first Orchard Oriole of the year, a first-year male, with a black throat and yellow chest. I didn't remember seeing Orchard Oriole at Colliers Mills. I thought it might be a patch bird. When I got home and checked my eBird records, I found it was not a patch bird. I'd seen it there before. Forty-one times before! Why do I even bother birding when the experience is obviously evanescent? I guess in the moment I enjoy it; I just don't recall it all that well. 

Solitary Sandpiper

From there I walked back to the pond that's fed by Borden's Mill Branch. There, I suspected, I would find a Spotted Sandpiper on the mud and eventually I did find one in stiff-winged flight, landing too far out to be photographed, unlike the more cooperative Solitary Sandpiper, closer in. I also heard, closer to Hawkin Road, in the usual spot by the mountain laurels, a Hooded Warbler and finally was able to see this striking bird. Previously, walking through the woods, I saw something new to me--an Ovenbird carrying nesting material. Pete used to say that Ovenbird was the most common nesting warbler in NJ. Judging from the singing birds all along my route, they're pretty ensconced in Colliers Mills. 

Ovenbird

I was still missing one target bird, but I was fairly confident I could rectify that with a five-minute drive to the Emson Preserve. There, in the tree line that runs up the driveway to the parking lot, I was able to see and hear two Indigo Buntings. If I can't find them at Colliers, Emson is my fallback spot. 

Now a digression regarding "indigo." To begin, I don't know why these birds have "indigo" as their modifier. If you look at the color I've used for Indigo Bunting, it is more a purple than the deep blue the bird actually is. In short, Indigo Buntings are not indigo. Which is find because, as a color, indigo is a problem.

In my former life in the printing biz, I had to deal with color a lot. I know color theory. (And believe me, it is really a theory, not a law.) Many of you, in grade school, learned that the colors of the rainbow were ROY G. BIV--red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. That's how Newton described the colors he saw when he separated white light with a prism. There's only one flaw. Indigo doesn't exist in the rainbow. Newton only put it in there because he thought the colors had to have symmetry with the musical notes--there are seven musical notes, thus there had to be seven colors. Genius. 

Let me show you why indigo doesn't exist, using a box of Crayolas. If you put ROY G. BIV on a wheel, you will see that RED & YELLOW yield ORANGE, YELLOW & BLUE yield GREEN, BLUE & RED yield VIOLET. There is no room for indigo on the color wheel. While I love the Indigo Bunting, I hate the name. Let's not even get into the fact that it isn't truly a bunting either!

The Colliers Mills list of 42 species.

Canada Goose  6
Mallard  6
Mourning Dove  2
Chimney Swift  1     Lake
Killdeer  3
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Solitary Sandpiper  1
Laughing Gull  20     Flyover
Turkey Vulture  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  3
Eastern Wood-Pewee  4
Eastern Phoebe  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  5
White-eyed Vireo  3
Warbling Vireo  1
Red-eyed Vireo  3
Blue Jay  6
Tufted Titmouse  2
Barn Swallow  4
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  3
Carolina Wren  2
Gray Catbird  10
Northern Mockingbird  1
Wood Thrush  3
American Robin  7
Chipping Sparrow  3
Field Sparrow  1
White-throated Sparrow  1
Eastern Towhee  6
Orchard Oriole  1
Baltimore Oriole  1
Red-winged Blackbird  20
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Ovenbird  10
Black-and-white Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  7
Hooded Warbler  1    
Pine Warbler  3
Prairie Warbler  3
Blue Grosbeak  4

Island Beach SP 5/2--Least Sandpiper, Blue-headed Vireo, Black-throated Green Warbler

Black-throated Green Warbler

I started on Reed's Road today and met up with Steve. Of course, since I was there, the birding was slow. I'm beginning to think I'm a Jonah when it comes to migration at Reed's. However, we walked up to the bowl and there, as I was hoping, we came across my first Black-throated Green Warbler of the year. For some reason, I don't see many of these warblers, and for some reason, when I do, it's usually in the bowl. A couple of minutes later, Steve spotted a Blue-headed Vireo in a tree, another year bird for me, so slow going or not, I was happy. Then I found another Black-throated Green and this one paused long enough and close enough for me to document it. 

Steve had other stuff to do, so I continued south, making my next stop at A15, the Kayak Access trail. Lately, there has been a lot of exposed eelgrass there--I don't know if this is from winter storms or if I just happen to have low tide 3 times in a row--and on the eelgrass shorebirds have been feeding. Today there was a flock of Least Sandpipers picking away at the reeking eelgrass--I know this stuff used to be used as insulation, but how they got the smell out is a mystery. Or maybe people weren't so finicky back then when it came to stuffing insulation in your attic and between walls. But it was also used in upholstery!

My next two stops didn't yield anything new, but I did get all the waders I could reasonably expect and at Spizzle Creek, just before I was leaving, I heard a Baltimore Oriole singing at the "T", but I couldn't find it despite looking in every cedar. The oriole was my first for the county this year. 

Least Sandpiper

Slow birding: 45 species.

Brant   Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Mallard   Reed’s Road
Mourning Dove   Reed’s Road
Willet   Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Greater Yellowlegs   Kayak access
Least Sandpiper   Kayak access
Laughing Gull   Reed’s Road
American Herring Gull   Reed’s Road
Great Black-backed Gull   Kayak access
Forster's Tern   Reed’s Road
Double-crested Cormorant   Reed’s Road
Glossy Ibis   Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
Little Blue Heron   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Tricolored Heron   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Snowy Egret   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Great Egret   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Great Blue Heron   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Osprey   Kayak access
Belted Kingfisher   Reed’s Road
Red-bellied Woodpecker   Reed’s Road
Great Crested Flycatcher   Reed’s Road
Eastern Kingbird   Johnny Allen’s Cove Trail
White-eyed Vireo   Reed’s Road
Blue-headed Vireo   Reed’s Road
Carolina Chickadee   Reed’s Road
Tree Swallow   Reed’s Road
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher   Reed’s Road
Gray Catbird   Reed’s Road
Northern Mockingbird   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
American Robin   Reed’s Road
House Finch   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
American Goldfinch   Reed’s Road
Field Sparrow   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Song Sparrow   Kayak access
Eastern Towhee   Reed’s Road
Baltimore Oriole   Spizzle Creek Blind Trail
Red-winged Blackbird   Reed’s Road
Brown-headed Cowbird   Reed’s Road
Boat-tailed Grackle   Reed’s Road
Common Yellowthroat   Reed’s Road
Northern Parula   Reed’s Road
Yellow Warbler   Reed’s Road
Yellow-rumped Warbler   Reed’s Road
Black-throated Green Warbler   Reed’s Road
Northern Cardinal   Reed’s Road
Rose-breasted Grosbeak   Reed’s Road