I'll have to find a new nemesis bird for Ocean County, because this morning, after innumerable trips to the environs of New Egypt over the last couple of years, I finally tracked down a Pileated Woodpecker. I'd already gone to the Plumsted Recreational Park (New Egypt is part of Plumsted) a few times this year where the woodpeckers had been seen in the past, but this year I noticed that one birder was posting them as being in "North New Egypt."
A little investigation with Google Street View showed that his location was actually on the Ocean County extension of the Union Transportation Trail which follows a power line cut laid down on the old right of way of the milk train that used to run from New Egypt to Cream Ridge. I took a chance and parked in a lot behind an Ace Hardware store, next to some charity bins. I didn't see any signs that said, "No Parking." This section, like the section a little farther north, is not finished with gravel like the Monmouth County section, but rather is just a mowed strip between bushes and tangles on one side and woods on the other. After passing through a short alley of abandoned truck trailers, I started up the trail, where a gigantic flock of Common Grackles were kretzing in the treetops. A little farther on a flock of White-throated Sparrows scared up from the bushes, and then I saw a big woodpecker fly across the trail, landing somewhere in the woods. I was pretty certain that was my bird, but the first two woodpeckers on tree trunks that I glassed were just a Red-bellied Woodpecker and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. But then, raising my binoculars to the height of the flight, there atop the bare tree was the huge black and white woodpecker with a red crest. Success at last! I moved up, hoping to get a better angle on the bird and maybe even a photo op, but, as so often happens, changing position lost me the bird. Still, I saw it, big as life.
Pileated Woodpecker is rarely rare in NJ counties, but here in Ocean only the northern part of the county has suitable habitat. I guess they don't like pines. I've seen them all around Ocean: Burlco, Mercer, Monmouth, Middlesex, up norther in Warren & Somerset, down south in Cape May, but finding one here was starting to seem like my life's work. Lucky is that birder who made a video of one in his backyard in New Egypt.
The rest of the morning was spent walking around Colliers Mills, which was full of sparrows and not much else. No good pictures today except for these two birds I can't count. I'm wondering what kind of pet an ostrich makes and why you'd want two.
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| Across from Colliers Mills on Hawkin Road. |
