February Review--15 Year Birds

Savannah Sparrow (Ipswich ssp), Barnegat Light SP, with bling

Birding as a hobby: I go out and I walk around and I look for birds. I enjoy the birds for themselves--I watch crows mob first a Red-tailed Hawk, then a Northern Harrier at Manasquan River WMA; or I notice the bands on an Ipswich Savannah Sparrow; or I just admire how clean and crisp the Herring Gulls suddenly look as spring get closer.

Birding as a game: How many birds can I see today? This month? This year? In this county? In that county? Am I wasting my time in that county when I could be building up my list in this county?

This month it seemed like I alternated the hobby with the game every other day, although the game is always being played at some level. It is most satisfying when the hobby finds a bird I "need" for the game. The least satisfying is when I deliberately go looking for one bird for the game...and don't find it. Those are the times I have to remind myself, forcefully, that it's just a game, it is just a bird.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

With all that said, it was a pretty good month for the hobby and the game. Birds I wasn't expecting turned up, like the Barred Owl Mike and I heard at Eno's Pond on Sunday in the middle of the afternoon. We were just looking around there (hobby) and heard "Who cooks for you!" three times, adding the bird to our state and county lists (game). And it was a pretty good month for owls with a count of 4 species for the month: Barred, Saw-whet, Long-eared, Short-eared. Now, if we could only figure out where there's a Barn Owl in the state (hobby), preferably in Ocean County (game).

Now for some arithmetic: the 15 birds I added to my year list bring me up to 151 in two months. That's half of what I hope to see in NJ for the year. For the remaining 10 months of the year I will have to average 15 new birds a month--that should be easy in April and May during warbler migration and maybe in August during shorebird migration, but difficult the rest of the year, especially since I don't do pelagics so all the birds I see will be from land. That means I better enjoy the hobby because the game gets much more challenging hereon in.

Counties birded: Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Warren
127 species:

Species            First Sighting

Snow Goose   Brig

Ross's Goose   Cream Ridge

Greater White-fronted Goose   Conine’s Millpond

Brant   Manasquan Inlet

Cackling Goose   Etra Lake

Canada Goose   Bamber Lake

Mute Swan   Waretown

Trumpeter Swan   Stone Tavern Lake

Tundra Swan   Bamber Lake

Muscovy Duck   Fletcher Lake

Wood Duck   Little Silver Lake

Northern Shoveler   Lake Takanassee

Gadwall   Lake Takanassee

Eurasian Wigeon   Fletcher Lake

American Wigeon   Lake Takanassee

Mallard   Marshall's Pond

American Black Duck   Barnegat Beach

Northern Pintail   Forsythe-Barnegat

Green-winged Teal   Brig

Canvasback   Riverfront Landing

Redhead   Lake Takanassee

Ring-necked Duck   Marshall's Pond

Greater Scaup   Waretown

Lesser Scaup   Lake Takanassee

Common Eider   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Surf Scoter   Point Pleasant Beach

White-winged Scoter   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Black Scoter   Manasquan Inlet

Long-tailed Duck   Waretown

Bufflehead   Waretown

Common Goldeneye   Cloverdale Farm

Hooded Merganser   Bamber Lake

Common Merganser   Marshall's Pond

Red-breasted Merganser   Waretown

Ruddy Duck   Riverfront Landing

Wild Turkey   New Egypt

Pied-billed Grebe   Lake Takanassee

Horned Grebe   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Rock Pigeon   New Egypt

Mourning Dove   Waretown

American Coot   Lake of the Lilies

American Oystercatcher   Brigantine Island

Killdeer   Cape May Point SP

Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Sanderling   Manasquan Inlet

Dunlin   Manasquan Inlet

Purple Sandpiper   Manasquan Inlet

American Woodcock   Crestwood Village

Greater Yellowlegs   Eno’s Pond

Bonaparte's Gull   Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal

Ring-billed Gull   Waretown

Herring Gull   Bamber Lake

Iceland Gull   Edison Boat Launch

Lesser Black-backed Gull   Lake Takanassee

Great Black-backed Gull   Waretown

Red-throated Loon   Brigantine Island

Pacific Loon   Manasquan Inlet

Common Loon   Manasquan Inlet

Northern Gannet   Sunset Beach/Concrete Ship

Great Cormorant   Sayreville Marsh

Double-crested Cormorant   Riverfront Landing

Great Blue Heron   Cloverdale Farm

Black-crowned Night-Heron   Brig

Black Vulture   Pinehurst Rd

Turkey Vulture   Pinehurst Rd

Northern Harrier   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Sharp-shinned Hawk   Lake Takanassee

Cooper's Hawk   Colliers Mills WMA

Bald Eagle   Waretown

Red-shouldered Hawk   Cape May Point SP

Red-tailed Hawk   New Egypt

Rough-legged Hawk   BC Fairgrounds

Barred Owl   Eno’s Pond

Long-eared Owl   Assunpink WMA

Short-eared Owl   Pole Farm

Northern Saw-whet Owl   Pole Farm

Belted Kingfisher   Cattus Island County Park

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Downy Woodpecker   Collinstown Rd

Hairy Woodpecker   New Egypt

Pileated Woodpecker   Assunpink WMA

Northern Flicker   New Egypt

American Kestrel   Plumsted

Merlin   Cranberry Bogs

Peregrine Falcon   Sayreville Marsh

Eastern Phoebe   Assunpink WMA

Blue Jay   Poplar St Boat Ramp

American Crow   35 Sunset Rd

Fish Crow   New Egypt

Common Raven   Cranberry Bogs

Carolina Chickadee   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Black-capped Chickadee   Merrill Creek Reservoir

Boreal Chickadee   Merrill Creek Reservoir

Tufted Titmouse   Collinstown Rd

Red-breasted Nuthatch   Collinstown Rd

White-breasted Nuthatch   Cloverdale Farm

Brown Creeper   Colliers Mills WMA

Carolina Wren   Collinstown Rd

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Brig

Eastern Bluebird   Cloverdale Farm

Hermit Thrush   Collinstown Rd

American Robin   Bamber Lake

Gray Catbird   Assunpink WMA

Northern Mockingbird   Collinstown Rd

European Starling   Barnegat Municipal Dock

House Finch   Collinstown Rd

Pine Siskin   Cloverdale Farm

American Goldfinch   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Chipping Sparrow   Manasquan River WMA

Field Sparrow   New Egypt

American Tree Sparrow   Shelter Cove Park

Fox Sparrow   Collinstown Rd

Dark-eyed Junco   Collinstown Rd

White-throated Sparrow   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Savannah Sparrow   Pole Farm

Song Sparrow   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Swamp Sparrow   Whitesbog

Eastern Meadowlark   Pole Farm

Red-winged Blackbird   Barnegat

Brown-headed Cowbird   New Egypt

Rusty Blackbird   Oros Wildlife Preserve

Common Grackle   New Egypt

Boat-tailed Grackle   Manasquan Inlet

Pine Warbler   Colliers Mills WMA

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Poplar St Boat Ramp

Northern Cardinal   Poplar St Boat Ramp

House Sparrow   Barnegat

Common Goldeneye, Cloverdale Farm

Conine's Millpond | Pole Farm 2/17--Greater White-fronted Goose, Short-eared Owl

Greater White-fronted Goose in the middle
(digiscope)

And sometimes it all works perfectly. Mike and I had a plan today and it worked better than we expected. We met at 1 in the afternoon instead of our usual morning rendezvous and headed up to the fields around Assunpink. We were looking for rare geese--both Barnacle and Greater White-fronted Goose have been in the area. We made a stop at a field where the GWFG had been reported yesterday but there was nothing there but standard-issue geese. "We should check the lake," Mike said, being Conine's Millpond in Allentown. All the geese there were at the back of the lake, away from the fishermen, so while they were a little jammed up, at least we didn't have to scan the entire body of water. We came up with quite few different species of ducks mixed in with the Canada Geese before Mike found the Greater White-fronted stuck behind a couple of larger geese. It was too far away for either of our cameras, but after much frustration because the goofy goose would drift behind another goose, it finally came out into a clear spot on the water and I was able to digiscope some truly terrible documentary photos. You can click on the photo above to make it larger and more awful.

We still had time before the main part of our plan kicked in, so we went up to Assunpink and scanned the lake with some other birders and came up with 10 species of waterfowl including a few Canvasbacks and Lesser Scaups. Then we went to the semi-secret spot to look the Long-eared Owl. I'd seen it last week. Funny story: When we first saw it in January, as I was being positioned by our friend into the exact spot I had to stand, my hat snagged on a twig and fell off. Last week, while kicking around in the same spot I couldn't find the owl. I was just about to quit when my hat snagged on a twig. I looked up. In a beam of sunlight, there was the owl. Today, I did not lose my hat. The owl (there is most certainly more than one in there) was in a different tree, even though the fresh pellets were scattered around the tree where we originally saw it.

This was all prelude to the main part of our plan, the reason we met so late. We drove over to the Pole Farm in Mercer County--crepuscular owls were our goal. As it seemed to be for many, because when we arrived at 4:15, the parking lot was more than half-full and photographers were assembling their artillery onto tripods while others were already set up on the muddy path between two grassy fields.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Before stopping there though, we walked back to grove of trees and looked for the (again, "the" is a misnomer, there are more than one) Northern Saw-whet Owl and after a little searching, Mike found one about 10 feet off the ground. The photographers we'd asked, on our way in, seemed disappointed that only one owl was showing, but that's because it was so tucked in that getting a clean shot was for them impossible. However, since on my tombstone it will say "HE ONLY NEEDED ONE" I was perfectly fine with the owl we saw and perfectly satisfied (well, not "perfectly" with the photo it allowed me.

Finally, we were prepared to settle in for the main event. Sunset today was 5:35. We were back on the muddy path at just about 5:10. We figured a good half hour before we saw anything. Northern Harriers still had the field (including one beautiful Gray Ghost). They are supposed to punch out at sunset and leave the field for the night shift. But probably because the sky was overcast and the winds were calm, we hadn't been standing there for more than a few minutes when I spotted a raptor that was flying like a bat, not a harrier. It was the first of the 3 Short-eared Owls that we saw today. The harriers were not happy with the competition and there were a couple of skirmishes that we watched. A harrier and an owl were parrying low to the ground when they both disappeared into the high grass. Neither came back up, that we could see. Much speculation but who knows?

This was a much better result than we had anticipated--usually it is some dim by the time the owls make their appearance that they are merely silhouettes in the gloaming. Today we got to see them in graylight, with their rufous tails and buffy bodies. They were fun to watch as they flopped above the fields. Much too far for photography for us. I'd be curious to see what the artillerymen came up with.

On our way back to the parking lot we saw 5 Savannah Sparrows in the muddy path and just near the rudimentary restrooms, a few Eastern Meadowlarks finished the day for us.

Savannah Sparrow

Assunpink & Pole Farm 1/9--Long-eared Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl

Northern Saw-whet Owl, Pole Farm
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

I called a wise man yesterday to find out the secret locations of a couple of owls so that Mike & I could pursue our quest for cool and/or hard to find birds. Owls qualify as both. The wise man kindly gave me directions to both owls and early this morning, after a stop at Stone Tavern Lake so that Mike could pick up Trumpeter Swan for the year (cool and hard to find), we were stomping around a conifer plantation at Assunpink, looking for owl pellets. I thought I had followed the directions accurately but we had no visuals of pellets much less the owl. Not really unexpected as these things go--you can be looking right at an owl and never see it so well camouflaged are they.

We gave up and drove west to The Pole Farm, the old AT&T facility which once had hundreds of  transmission towers for international calls but is now a Mercer County park with grasslands where the poles once stood and a little cedar grove where Building #1 used to be. In that grove, somewhere, was at least one Northern Saw-whet Owl and once again we followed the directions closely, walking past the spot where last year we saw Long-eared Owls (and couldn't find them today even though I've been told they were back in residence) and once again we couldn't find the owl. We looked in every cedar tree in the area and I was just about getting disgusted when Mike called me over. There, in a small cedar, just steps off the trail, a little higher than eye-height, was the owl. We could have reached out and petted it. Another cool and hard to find bird for the day.

It was very windy today so instead of walking back to the car the way we came, through the grasslands, we took a more circuitous route which brought us through some woods where not a bird was evident. However, we still had to walk out in the open for a while and there, in the grasslands we saw our first Eastern Meadowlarks of the year--cool but not particularly hard to find.

We made a quick stop at the Trenton Sewer Facility, where for the last few years wintering warblers have been found but unfortunately for us and the warblers, most of the thickets of vegetation have been cut down affording little cover for the birds to escape the cold. We did see a trio of Tree Swallows (neither cool nor hard to find) snagging the many little flies that were emerging from the settling basins.

Cackling Goose in front, Conine's Mill Pond
Photo: Mike Mandracchia

At Conine's Mill Pond in Allentown (we're back in Monmouth County now), there were a couple of thousand Canada Geese (certainly not hard to find) but amazingly I espied one Cackling Goose among them and more amazingly, as the flock shuffled and reshuffled I was able to refind it when we drove over to the other side of the pond. Mike was able to get a fine photo documenting what for both us was our second Cackling Goose of the year. (Cool and supposedly hard to find but I think that in every large flock of Canada Geese there is a Cackling Goose and that they are listed as rare just to keep the misidentifications down to minimum on eBird.)

When we first started scanning the pond, looking for anything other than a goose on it, I came across a couple of Common Mergansers which were FOY for me but not Mike. (Cool, but as the name implies, not hard to find.)

After a brief stop at Colliers Mills where I was able to put Bald Eagle on my Ocean County list, we were heading back to Mike's place where I'd left my car when the wise man texted me, asking if we'd seen the owls. I told him we'd batted .500. He told me he was looking at the owl we missed. I groaned, but after calling the wise man, he kindly agreed to stay in place and show us the bird. We were about 20 minutes away from Assunpink if you took the speed limits with a grain of salt and when we got there the wise man led us to the grove and entered it about 40 feet closer than we had. Ironically, I was probably standing in more or less that spot two days ago when I was looking for the owl and abandoned by search for the Pileated Woodpecker. By now you've figured out that this was the Long-eared Owl of the post's title, a very cool bird and very hard to find and see. Mike and the wise man spent 5 minutes manipulating my neck, head, and posture until the bird finally came into focus, looking, seemingly, right at me. I realized that the wise man could have put flashing lights onto the base of the tree to show us where the owl was and without his precise directions as to what angle to put my head at, I still wouldn't have found the bird. Now I have to return the favor and find the wise man a Red-headed Woodpecker at Colliers Mills.

With 5 year birds tacked onto my list we left Assunpink and headed back with enough cool birds on the day for a work week.

February Wrap-up

Northern Pintail, Shelter Cove Park

It was a tough month of birding. While I added 20 species to the year list and while some of them were exciting birds to find (particularly the Ross's Geese at Whitesbog, the Pink-footed Goose at Warinanco Park, and the Long-eared Owl at Pole Farm), there were many days of remarkably crappy birding, where I would find very few species on my walks through the woods and fields and on the beaches of the Garden State. Granted, I have been going to some out of the way spots in an attempt to add variety to my walks; some of these locations seem underbirded to me. Perhaps not. There may be a reason not many birders go there--there ain't no birds. Or it's the wrong time of year for where I'm walking. Manasquan River WMA is a for instance: great spot in the spring; in the winter, something of a bird-free zone, though, I have to remember that I did get my FOY Hermit Thrush there.

Whatever the reasons I'm not getting more birds this year, I'm way behind last year's list, when, at this time I had 10 more species than my current 127.

The highlight of the month, however, only had to do with birding tangentially. Last Saturday, Shari & I went on the first of Mike's Birds of Jackson trips, as we do each year. It's a great concept: Go to the same locations 5 times from mid-winter to mid-spring and watch how the bird populations change with the season. There's usually a core group of local birders who do this trip, but on Saturday, we had a new addition in Cheryl, who has recently taken up this hobby/obsession.

And it seems it is already something of a fever for her, because she went out to Minnesota to join Mike and Kim's trip out there and birded in 25 degrees below zero. When Shari & I made the trip a few years ago we were lucky and never had temperatures approaching that. Cheryl is soon to retire from her job in IT at...WAWA! Mike, of course, informed her of my, let's call it, deep, abiding interest in all things Wawa, so when we met on Saturday, Cheryl came with a couple of Wawa gift baskets for Shari & me containing valuable Wawa accessories like mugs, cups, and lunch bag. She made the delightful presentation in the Jackson Memorial High School parking lot. She also told us there is a new, two-story Wawa in Media, Pennsylvania. Media is only about 2 hours from here. Road trip!

For the month I finished with 114 species. I'm hoping to get back on track in March.
Counties birded: Atlantic, Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean, Union

Species            First Sighting

Snow Goose   Brig

Ross's Goose   Whitesbog

Pink-footed Goose   Warinanco Park

Brant   Manasquan Inlet

Cackling Goose   Assunpink WMA

Canada Goose   Horicon Lake

Mute Swan   Lake of the Lilies

Trumpeter Swan   Assunpink WMA

Tundra Swan   Whitesbog

Wood Duck   Bunker Hill Bogs

Northern Shoveler   Lake Como

Gadwall   Lake of the Lilies

American Wigeon   Lake of the Lilies

Mallard   Horicon Lake

American Black Duck   Horicon Lake

Northern Pintail   Forsythe-Barnegat

Green-winged Teal   Brig

Canvasback   Assunpink WMA

Redhead   Lake of the Lilies

Ring-necked Duck   Assunpink WMA

Tufted Duck   Wreck Pond

Greater Scaup   Manasquan Inlet

Lesser Scaup   Lake of the Lilies

Common Eider   Island Beach SP

Harlequin Duck   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Surf Scoter   Manasquan Inlet

Black Scoter   Manasquan Inlet

Long-tailed Duck   Manasquan Inlet

Bufflehead   Manasquan Inlet

Common Goldeneye   Maclearie Park

Hooded Merganser   Horicon Lake

Common Merganser   Horicon Lake

Red-breasted Merganser   Lake of the Lilies

Ruddy Duck   Lake of the Lilies

Ring-necked Pheasant   New Egypt

Wild Turkey   35 Sunset Rd

Red-throated Loon   Barnegat Municipal Dock

Common Loon   Manasquan Inlet

Pied-billed Grebe   Ocean County Parks Offices

Horned Grebe   Manasquan Inlet

Red-necked Grebe   Manasquan Inlet

Great Cormorant   Manasquan Inlet

Double-crested Cormorant   Maclearie Park

Great Blue Heron   Meadowedge Park

Black Vulture   Brig

Turkey Vulture   Horicon Lake

Northern Harrier   Brig

Sharp-shinned Hawk   Motts Creek

Cooper's Hawk   Horicon Lake

Bald Eagle   Brig

Red-shouldered Hawk   Whitesbog

Red-tailed Hawk   Brig

American Coot   Lake of the Lilies

Sandhill Crane   New Egypt

American Oystercatcher   Brigantine Island

Killdeer   Shelter Cove Park

Ruddy Turnstone   Barnegat Lighthouse SP

Sanderling   Shark River Inlet

Dunlin   Great Bay Blvd

Purple Sandpiper   Manasquan Inlet

Greater Yellowlegs   Brigantine Island

Willet   Brigantine Island

Ring-billed Gull   Horicon Lake

Herring Gull   Lake of the Lilies

Lesser Black-backed Gull   Sylvan Lake

Great Black-backed Gull   Lake of the Lilies

Rock Pigeon   Lake of the Lilies

Mourning Dove   35 Sunset Rd

Snowy Owl   Brig

Long-eared Owl   Pole Farm

Belted Kingfisher   Ocean County Parks Offices

Red-bellied Woodpecker   Cloverdale Farm

Downy Woodpecker   Cloverdale Farm

Hairy Woodpecker   Cloverdale Farm

Northern Flicker   Assunpink WMA

American Kestrel   Brigantine Island

Merlin   Highway 35, Wall

Peregrine Falcon   Brig

Blue Jay   Brig

American Crow   Horicon Lake

Fish Crow   Assunpink WMA

Carolina Chickadee   35 Sunset Rd

Tufted Titmouse   35 Sunset Rd

White-breasted Nuthatch   35 Sunset Rd

Brown Creeper   35 Sunset Rd

Carolina Wren   Horicon Lake

Golden-crowned Kinglet   Cloverdale Farm

Ruby-crowned Kinglet   Ocean County Parks Offices

Eastern Bluebird   Brig

Hermit Thrush   Manasquan River WMA

American Robin   Horicon Lake

Brown Thrasher   Shelter Cove Park

Northern Mockingbird   Brig

European Starling   Manasquan Inlet

Cedar Waxwing   Riverfront Landing

Yellow-rumped Warbler   Cloverdale Farm

American Tree Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

Chipping Sparrow   Forest Resource Education Center

Field Sparrow   Assunpink WMA

Fox Sparrow   Shelter Cove Park

Dark-eyed Junco   35 Sunset Rd

White-throated Sparrow   35 Sunset Rd

Savannah Sparrow   Shelter Cove Park

Song Sparrow   Cloverdale Farm

Eastern Towhee   Brig

Northern Cardinal   35 Sunset Rd

Eastern Meadowlark   Pole Farm

Red-winged Blackbird   Brig

Brown-headed Cowbird   New Egypt

Common Grackle   Manasquan Inlet

Boat-tailed Grackle   Manasquan Inlet

House Finch   35 Sunset Rd

American Goldfinch   35 Sunset Rd

House Sparrow   Galloway