Pemberton Lake | PPA | BC Fairgrounds 2/15--Wood Duck, Northern Pintail, American Kestrel, White-crowned Sparrow

American Kestrel
BC Fairgrounds

A Sunday morning in Burlco. I very often spend Sunday mornings at Reeve's Bogs, but since the great freeze over of 2026, that place is pretty much inaccessible, so I decided to try some Burlco spots that were yielding interesting reports. 

I started off at Pemberton Lake. No surprise that it was 75% frozen, but there was open water in the back and with my scope I was able to find a few ducks among the 100 or so Canada Geese. The first year bird for the day was a drake Wood Duck--it had been so long since I had seen one and it was so distant, that it took a moment for me to realize what I had in the scope. Next in view was a gorgeous drake Redhead, rare in county, and then the expected Mallards and a couple of Ring-necked Ducks. I ended my sweep when I got to a Bald Eagle on the ice, chowing down on a goose carcass. Swinging back, I came across a couple of Northern Pintails dabbling and a hen Lesser Scaup, fairly unusual for that spot. 

Then I drove over to the PPA--technically now the Pinelands Alliance Headquarters since they recently changed the name of the organization--where the walking was a little difficult, but where I found what I was looking for--a White-crowned Sparrow right in the brush where I parked the car. I tried for pictures, but the camera focused on the twigs the bird was behind. I also enjoyed a huge flock of Snow Geese that flew overhead--at least 150. 

Then it was on to the BC Fairgrounds. After not finding a Rough-legged Hawk 3 times in Ocean County, I thought maybe I would bump into the one reported there yesterday. But if not, I was fairly confident that I would see an American Kestrel there and I was right--after parking the car, I plunked down the scope, focused on the weather station at the back of the field, and there midway up the tower was the kestrel. That's a lot easier than cruising the roads of New Egypt, looking for one, which is what I spent part of yesterday morning doing. 

I scanned every stand of trees in the field and could not come up with the desired buteo. I took a long walk around the grounds, found one Northern Harrier and some usual land birds and when I returned to the car, about 45 minutes later, I saw a small bird in one of the trees. I thought the kestrel had moved. I got out the scope again and the small bird had turned into a large hawk. Could this be the rough-legged? It was really distant and the light was murky (as you can see from the picture of the kestrel) and I went back and forth on the identification, leaving it open until I got home where I could blow up the crappy photos I took.  I have been fooled more than once by a Red-tailed Hawk there when I wanted a rough-legged and today was the same story. And the small bird? My photos revealed that it had been a Norther Flicker that had to make way for the red-tail when the hawk decided that of all the branches in those woods, the branch the flicker was on was the one it wanted.

29 Species for the day.

Species           Location

Snow Goose    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Canada Goose    Pemberton Lake WMA

Wood Duck    Pemberton Lake WMA

Mallard    Pemberton Lake WMA

Northern Pintail    Pemberton Lake WMA

Redhead    Pemberton Lake WMA

Ring-necked Duck    Pemberton Lake WMA

Lesser Scaup    Pemberton Lake WMA

Mourning Dove    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Ring-billed Gull    BC Fairgrounds

Turkey Vulture    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Northern Harrier    BC Fairgrounds

Bald Eagle    Pemberton Lake WMA

Red-tailed Hawk    BC Fairgrounds

Red-bellied Woodpecker    Pemberton Lake WMA

Northern Flicker    BC Fairgrounds

American Kestrel    BC Fairgrounds

Blue Jay    Pemberton Lake WMA

American Crow    Pemberton Lake WMA

Tufted Titmouse    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

European Starling    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Eastern Bluebird    BC Fairgrounds

American Robin    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

House Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Dark-eyed Junco    BC Fairgrounds

White-crowned Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

White-throated Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Song Sparrow    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Common Grackle    Pinelands Alliance Headquarters

Whitesbog 2/27--American Woodcock

Tundra Swans on ice, Upper Reservoir, Whitesbog

After a trip to the dump I took a long walk around Whitesbog, from the village out to the Upper Reservoir and back. It had its frustrations. For one thing we're back in the grips of the "Arctic Vortex." For another, there weren't many birds about and the ones that were there were either being damned elusive or very skittish. Just past Union Pond I flushed a Wood Duck; it flew up out of the reeds and right back down again, never to be seen again, though I did hear it rustle its wings again. The big flock of Tundra Swans and Canada Geese on the frozen bog up and left as soon as they sensed me.  I did get a chance at another flock on the Upper Reservoir, but between the Wood Duck and the Reservoir I saw exactly: 2 chickadees and 1 junco. 

As I was coming around on the loop I took the double road back to where I saw the Wood Duck. I came across this very nice Ring-necked Duck in the channel between the roads.

As I was walking along the path slowly, hoping to find the Wood Duck again, I saw what I at first took to be a crow fly over across the road, but instantly saw that it was a hawk. A hawk of some kind and I really wanted it to be a Rough-legged Hawk (which would be a lifer) but despite all my hard looking, all I could truthfully say is that it was a dark hawk, with a slight dihedral, soaring in circles. It never came overhead for me to get any field marks. More frustration. 

Walking back through the village I flushed another bird from just off the side of the road. Its wings twittered. "Woodcock!" I said. Then another. I saw this one fly off toward the back. Then another flew off after I took a couple of steps! Perfect habitat: a wet, brushy area right next to a little stream. They were flying back toward the wet woods. I couldn't go directly to where they landed since I'd be walking in someone's backyard (people do live at Whitesbog), so I doubled back 50 feet and took the path into the woods. I walked back to where I thought they'd gone and boom, they were off again. So, while I didn't get field guide views of them, I did turn up my FOY woodcocks. That made up for some of the frustration with the hawk. 

My list for Whitesbog:

15 species (+1 other taxa)
Canada Goose  97
Tundra Swan  63
Wood Duck  1
Ring-necked Duck  1    
Turkey Vulture  4
Killdeer  1
American Woodcock  3
Blue Jay  1
crow sp.  1
Carolina Chickadee  2
Hermit Thrush  2
American Robin  6
Fox Sparrow  1
White-throated Sparrow  3
Dark-eyed Junco  3
Northern Cardinal  1    Heard, village

I next drove over to Pemberton Lake WMA. When I was there with Shari a couple of weeks ago, it was completely covered in snow, though parts of the lake were open. I wanted to see what it was like to walk around it a bit. 

It's a great spot for ducks. About 1/2 the water is open. I parked at one end of the lake and walked about 3/4 of its length. It snowed off and on the hour I was there. The most surprising birds there for me were the hen & drake Northern Pintails I found nestling in with a flock of Mallards.

My Pemberton WMA list:

17 species
Canada Goose  700
Tundra Swan  5    f/o
Gadwall  1
American Wigeon  10
American Black Duck  4
Mallard  50
Northern Pintail  2
Ring-necked Duck  100
Hooded Merganser  25
Common Merganser  200
Great Blue Heron  2
Sharp-shinned Hawk  1
Mourning Dove  3
Downy Woodpecker  1
Carolina Chickadee  1    Heard
Carolina Wren  2    Heard
American Robin  1

Burlington County 2/16--Fish Crow

We explored several spots in Burlington County that I've been curious about--the main spot being Pemberton Lake WMA, where the water is for the most part open and there was lots of waterfowl--but the only new bird that we added for the year was found in the parking lot of the Pandora Diner on Route 206--a flock of Fish Crows duking it out with a much larger flock of starlings for bread that had been tossed over the snow drifts into a scraggly field.

Let me veer off a moment here from birds to words: What is it about the name "Pandora" that makes it so popular?  Okay, it's a Greek diner, but I can think of a lot of mythological names that have better connotations than the woman who brought all the woe into the world. There's the internet music service called Pandora for no reason that I can tell and I often see billboards for a line of jewelry called "Pandora." Why? If you type in "Pandora's Box store" into Google, you'll get 1,520,000 hits. Granted, there's a lot of duplicates in there, but it seems like a pretty popular name for jewelry, antique, gift, tapestry, and clothing stores. Folks, Pandora's box is empty. Except for hope. Hope is what didn't get out of the box into the world. Cold comfort, if you ask me.

Meanwhile, back in Burlington County, after we surveyed Pemberton Lake for a half hour or so (where the rarest bird was a Red-breasted Merganser, usually a salt-water duck), we drove around the area, scanning empty fields for flocks of either geese or larks--a Greater White-fronted Goose has been seen with the thousands of Canada Geese in the area, and a Lapland Longspur has been spotted, as so often happens, with the larks. Along the way we did see 4 beefy Fox Sparrows and in one farm field, a couple hundred each of Snow Geese and Horned Larks, but no target birds.

After a very good lunch at Pandora's Diner, we made the loop around the Mercer Sod Farm IBA but had no luck finding the Rough-legged Hawk (which would be a lifer for us) that has been reported there. We had to settle for a Northern Harrier.

Still, we found good birds and got the feel for another section of Burlington County. 28 species in the county.

Species                Location

Snow Goose     Pemberton Lake WMA

Canada Goose     Pemberton Lake WMA

Gadwall     Pemberton Lake WMA

American Wigeon     Pemberton Lake WMA

American Black Duck     Pemberton Lake WMA

Mallard     Pemberton Lake WMA

Canvasback     Pemberton Lake WMA

Ring-necked Duck     Pemberton Lake WMA

Common Merganser     Pemberton Lake WMA

Red-breasted Merganser     Pemberton Lake WMA

Turkey Vulture     Pemberton Lake WMA

Northern Harrier     Mercer Sod Farm IBA

Red-tailed Hawk     Pemberton Lake WMA

American Coot     Pemberton Lake WMA

Blue Jay     Pemberton Lake WMA

American Crow     Vincentown-Pemberton Rd

Fish Crow     Pandora Diner parking lot

Horned Lark     Vincentown-Pemberton Rd

Carolina Chickadee     Mercer Sod Farm IBA

White-breasted Nuthatch     Mercer Sod Farm IBA

American Robin     Pemberton Lake WMA

Northern Mockingbird     Mercer Sod Farm IBA

European Starling     Pandora Diner parking lot

Fox Sparrow     Simontown & Stockton Bridge Rd

White-throated Sparrow     Mercer Sod Farm IBA

Dark-eyed Junco     Pandora Diner parking lot

Northern Cardinal     Mercer Sod Farm IBA

Red-winged Blackbird     Vincentown-Pemberton Rd