Island Beach SP 11/16--PARASITIC JAEGER, Snow Bunting

A dreary, rainy morning into which, if we hadn't signed up for Scott & Linda's Island Beach field trip I would not have even gone, turned out to be quite an eventful birding day. The rain tapered off to a drizzle by the time we started the trip and there was no wind to speak of. With the overall gray lighting and a smooth ocean to scan, we spent most of our time on the beach. This is something I don't normally have the patience to do. When I was at Island Beach last week, I walked onto the beach, set up the scope, saw a few gannets, saw a few loons, took note of the gulls and left. Today, we spent, altogether, a couple of hours at least scanning the ocean from various points along the beach. There were good numbers of both loons, in flight and on the water, giving good comparison looks, lots of gannets, and large flights of scoters, some looking like black whips snapping in the sky. All 3 scoter species were represented and I was able to get the scope on one flight to see the white wing patches on the White-winged Scoters. The Black Scoters and Surf Scoters could be told apart by their faces if you had a scope on them. I took Scott's & Linda's words for most of them.

5 species of gulls were present in very large numbers--there were a lot of fishermen both on the beach and in boats (Linda thought it looked like a marine parking lot) so the gulls were very interested in the proceedings. With that many gulls Scott & Linda were certain there were jaegers to be found. Jaegers make their living stealing food from other birds. But the first 3 stops along the beach didn't turn up any of the species.

As I've said in the past, you don't see the bird you're looking for until you truly give up. I told Scott we wouldn't find jaegers because I needed it for my life list and I'd never come close, to my knowledge, of finding one. (Shari has seen them on pelagic trips; I'm a land-based birder.) So naturally, 5 minutes after I had confessed as a jaeger jinx, Scott spotted a PARASITIC JAEGER harassing a Laughing Gull. (Guess why they're called "parasitic.") This was a bird that looked pretty much like all the other juvenile gulls on the water except those brownish gulls are not nearly as aggressive and don't fly like falcons. I was okay with the view I got of the jaeger in flight as it headed north, but I'd have like to have seen it better. A few minutes later 2 more appeared as settled down on the water. They looked like two brown birds bobbing in the ocean; even with the scope at 60X power I couldn't see anything to distinguish them from other birds. But eventually they took flight and I was able to see some field marks (brown wings with white highlights, a white collar). Still, it was mostly in how they flew that made the biggest impression on me--they are more like raptors with strong wing-beats then gull that seem to fly effortlessly.

While we were scoping the water looking at the 2 jaegers, Linda called out to look on the beach--a small flock of Snow Buntings were bouncing along in flight at the water's edge. Those were our first buntings of the year and probably the first ones in a couple of years.

Scott and I have a running joke about our eBird county lists--Scott holds the lifetime records for a few counties in NJ including Ocean. Last year, when I accumulated the  most species in Ocean County for 2012, it was only because Scott didn't get down here much toward the end of the year. Sometimes I feel like all Scott has to do is step into Ocean County, look around for a few minutes and he'll be way ahead of my numbers. However, this year I'm doing really well--ironically because I've gone on a few outings with Scott. For instance--I'd never have gotten the jaeger without him, nor would I have added the American Pipit that flew over our heads without him pointing it out. And of course, if he hadn't suggested I check out the cattle farm in New Egypt back in January, we'd never have gotten the Northern Lapwings either. Today I added 5 more species for the year to bring me up 212; two of them, the pipit and the jaeger, are county life birds, putting me at #3. However, since I am a land-based birder, I know I'm never going to catch Scott for the top spot. And that's all right because he's 10 times the birder I am. Let's face it: I lead in Ocean County this year primarily because I'm always here.

My list for the day:
39 Species
American Black Duck  100
Surf Scoter  X
White-winged Scoter  25
Black Scoter  X
Surf/Black Scoter  X
Long-tailed Duck  3    Two flying, one in water
Bufflehead  100
Red-breasted Merganser  6
Red-throated Loon  50
Common Loon  30
Horned Grebe  1
Northern Gannet  50
Double-crested Cormorant  1
Great Blue Heron  7
Northern Harrier  1
Black-bellied Plover  2
Sanderling  25
Dunlin  10
PARASITIC JAEGER  3    
Bonaparte's Gull  10
Laughing Gull  X
Ring-billed Gull  X
Herring Gull  10
Great Black-backed Gull  10
Forster's Tern  2
Northern Flicker  1
Peregrine Falcon  1
Carolina Wren  1    Heard Winter Anchorage
Golden-crowned Kinglet  2    Heard Maintenance yard
Hermit Thrush  1    Heard, Interpretative Ctr
Gray Catbird  3
American Pipit  1    f/o
Snow Bunting  15
Yellow-rumped Warbler  10
Song Sparrow  1
Swamp Sparrow  1    Heard, Winter Anchorage
White-throated Sparrow  20
Dark-eyed Junco  1
Northern Cardinal  1    Interpretative Ctr
House Finch  1    Heard, Interpretative Ctr

Oros Preserve 11/10--Rusty Blackbird

When I lived in Iselin, NJ during the dark days of my adolescence, my sense of the place was very dim, or so it seems to me now, 45 years later. I had and still have, only the vaguest notions of the geography of the area, where the various towns of Woodbridge Township, of which Iselin is a part, were in relation to each other. I'm wistful now, about the fields that use to be across the street from our house--I didn't care about birds then. I can only imagine the birds I may have missed in those woods--my brother, who was the nature boy of the family, was always out there, but his interest was butterflies and moths. But from what I've seen in the last couple of years around the area, going to a couple of remaining wood lots nearby, I missed a lot.

All this is preamble to our venturing up to Middlesex County today to go to the Oros Preserve in Avenel, about 10 minutes from my mother's house. I don't know the history of this preserve--it is a relatively large wetlands reclamation project. The body of water, according to Google maps, is the Woodbridge Creek, which is the first time I've encountered that name. Right now it is a particularly popular "hot spot" because rare and always sought-after Red-headed Woodpeckers have been easy to find there in the abundant stands of dead trees.

Photos: Shari Zirlin

We found one, possibly two, juveniles. Hard to say if the bird(s) we kept seeing flying around the property were a single bird or a couple.As many as 3 birds have reported there.  It didn't take long to find one. We walked along one trail at random that came out on a small pond where there was a flock of Canada Geese and mixed in, a pair of Hooded Mergansers. Also in the dead tree limbs were many icterids--mostly Common Grackles though two distant birds (I kick myself for not lugging the scope today) brownish, smaller than grackles and obviously not sparrows, turned out to by our FOY Rusty Blackbirds, another rarity for the area. I'm sure some of the other blackbirds flying directly into the low autumn sun were also rusties, but I'm only "calling" two. 

I wish I'd known about this place a couple of years ago when I was essentially living in Iselin during a family health crises, though then it might not have been as well tended as it is now with mowed paths between the reeds. A dog walker warned me about keeping away from one side of the refuge because some homeless people were living there, so the area may have been a little sketchier back then. 

If you're wondering why the Red-headed Woodpeckers aren't red-headed it's because they don't attain their eponymous heads until adulthood. The juveniles are compositions in gray, black & white. 

 Our little list for a half hour's walk. Afterwards, we took my mother out to lunch to at an Indian restaurant on Oak Tree Road--the first time in her 86 years that she ever had Indian food. She liked it.

11 species
Canada Goose  85
Hooded Merganser  2
Herring Gull  1
Mourning Dove  1
Red-headed Woodpecker  1 

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1    Heard
Downy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  1    Heard
European Starling  20
Rusty Blackbird  2    
Common Grackle  10

Brigantine 11/9--Eurasian Wigeon, NELSON'S SPARROW

We took our somewhat monthly NJ Audubon field trip today with Pete Bacinski & Mike Mandracchia--last month's trip was wiped out by the government shutdown, thank you Tea Party.

I was prepared for cold conditions; as it turned out, I didn't even wear gloves today. No wind made viewing the thousands of ducks relatively easy--no frozen tears to deal with. After getting off to a roaring start at the Gull Pond--many ducks, an eagle, harriers--our little caravan was called over at the start of the Wildlife Drive by a birder Pete knew. He had a species of sparrow that I've been looking for all autumn, fruitlessly, down at Tuckerton--NELSON'S SPARROW. I've been searching for it so hard the last couple of months because it would be a life bird for us and although Tuckerton is the place in NJ for this species, I had no luck with it until today when Mike spotted a couple in the reeds. At first I only saw one briefly--not enough of a look to count it, but after some dedicated pishing by the group two soon made their appearance and I was able to get nice clear looks at both of them, and, bonus, compare them to a Saltmarsh Sparrow also in the vicinity. Until fairly recently, Saltmarsh and Nelson's were considered a single species, so I suppose back in my early days of birding at Jamaica Bay I may have seen this version, but if you see something and don't know what it is you  haven't seen it is my philosophy. Just to add to the confusion, until even more recently, these sparrows both "Sharp-tailed" in the middle of their common names. Happily, the nomenclature  has been simplified.

So, now that I'd seen the bird, the trick was to get Shari onto it. Looking into a marshy area of tall grass and reeds does not provide any decent landmarks. Saying,"look in the darker area before the channel," or "where the reeds are tan, not brown," is really frustrating to the person who wants to see the bird. Pointing with your finger doesn't help either. There are two ways the person is going to find the bird: luck or if the bird moves and she can follow it to its next stop. The latter happened, the bird clung to a reed for a while, Shari saw all the relevant field marks and we were all happy. I think it was a life bird for 5 of us on the trip.

Another interesting bird today, FOS, was Tundra Swan. Good to see them back for the winter. Shorebirds, aside from thousands of Dunlin, were scarce, though we did have a few yellowlegs, one Black-bellied Plover that I found among a flock of Dunlin, and a Western Sandpiper by the Gull Tower, feeding between the legs of a goose.

When we gathered for lunch the South Jersey bird text messaging service had some hot birds that we'd missed--Hudsonian Godwit and Eurasian Wigeon. Plus, one of the guys on our trip had seen a Common Goldeneye that we passed. It is hard to stop the line of cars if you aren't the leader. So we had some targets for the second trip around the dikes. The godwit, which was seen at the Gull Tower had flown, but Pete was determined to find the Eurasian Wigeon and once he located the flock of American Wigeons in the East Pool he went through each duck until he found the rare one--a wigeon with a red head and gray body instead of gray head and brown body.  We hadn't seen a Eurasian Wigeon in some time and this sighting made up for the frustration of last week's trip to Cape May when looked too late for the bird that had been in the Lightouse Pond.

While we were on the road, another report came in of Lapland Longspur. We drove to the reported spot but it wasn't to be found. The problem with lonspurs is that they like dirt or stubble. The only place on the Wildlife Drive for a longspur is the road. The problem with the road is cars. The report said it was repeatedly flushed by traffic but kept returning. By the time we got there, it must have gotten sick of the disturbance. However, later, on Pete's third trip around, he did find the longspur. We considered going with him to try for it (haven't seen one of those in years either) but somehow a cup of Wawa coffee seemed more appealing than another 8 mile drive. "And you call yourself a birding fanatic?"

For the day we had 60 species and with a life bird finally ticked, I'm not going to dwell on the ones that eluded us.
Brant  9
Canada Goose  300
Mute Swan  10
Tundra Swan  15
Gadwall  5
Eurasian Wigeon  1    
American Wigeon  20
American Black Duck  200
Mallard  10
Northern Shoveler  25
Northern Pintail  500
Green-winged Teal  10
Ring-necked Duck  1    Entrance Pond
Greater Scaup  50
Bufflehead  25
Hooded Merganser  10
Ruddy Duck  35
Common Loon  1
Horned Grebe  3
Double-crested Cormorant  10
Great Blue Heron  5
Great Egret  4
Snowy Egret  3
Little Blue Heron  1    At turn from South Dike to East Dike
Black-crowned Night-Heron  2    At turn from South Dike to East Dike
Turkey Vulture  1    Over Lily Lake
Northern Harrier  4
Sharp-shinned Hawk  1
Cooper's Hawk  1
Bald Eagle  3    two immatures circling while an adult flew by with prey in its talons.
Red-tailed Hawk  2
American Coot  10
Black-bellied Plover  1
Greater Yellowlegs  10
Dunlin  2000
Western Sandpiper  1
Ring-billed Gull  2
Herring Gull  50
Great Black-backed Gull  5
Peregrine Falcon  2
Blue Jay  1    Heard
American Crow  2    Heard
Tree Swallow  3
Carolina Chickadee  1    Heard picnic tables.
Tufted Titmouse  1    Heard picnic tables
Carolina Wren  2    Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet  1
Eastern Bluebird  2
American Robin  1    Lily Lake
Yellow-rumped Warbler  15
Savannah Sparrow  5
NELSON'S SPARROW  2
Saltmarsh Sparrow  1
Seaside Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  2
White-throated Sparrow  2    Heard
Dark-eyed Junco  1
Northern Cardinal  3    Entrance ponds
Boat-tailed Grackle  1
American Goldfinch  1    Lily Lake

Island Beach SP 11/8--Deked Out

I birded the length (and for what it's worth, the breadth) of Island Beach State Park today and I was especially interested in birding a new trail for me, the Winter Anchorage that is on the bay side, almost all the way down on the end. Looking at Google Maps I could see that there was a relatively short trail that led to the bay, then a much a longer one that wended through the pines and came out across from Sedge Island. The first disappointment was that the longer trail is for "Official Use Only." There were no birds along the relatively short trail that led to the boat ramp on the bay, but when I put my scope on the water I got excited. The first ducks I saw were Canvasbacks, along with a Brant, then I noticed a Mallard, a few Black Ducks, some Buffleheads and even one Northern Pintail. Some mixed flock! They were pretty far out in the bay but with the scope at full power and the sun behind me I was getting pretty good looks.

The Brant looked weird to me--it was too high out of the water. Then I noticed that the Canvasbacks weren't going anywhere. Nor was the Mallard. And the Mallard was just too brilliantly green around the head and didn't change shades when it turned around in the water. Back to the Brant, it had an odd crook in its neck, like it was looking over its shoulder--permanently. And then I realized that of course, these were all decoys.

And based on my reading of the Ducks Unlimited magazine, not a very good "set" in that there weren't nearly enough decoys for the area covered and the fakes weren't set out in a pattern (you want to sort of make a visual arrow) that might persuade the ducks to fly in. They may have fooled me 100 yards away, but I doubt they'd trick a real duck.

Two more positive aspects of the day were seeing my FOY Ocean County Northern Gannets (always a joy to watch these big birds plunge dive), making 205 species for the year and getting my NJ senior citizen card which allows me into all "State Parks, Forests, Recreation Areas and Historic Sites" free along with my passengers (that would be Shari).

It was very windy today, which probably kept the passerines hunkered down. But gannets, a pelican, and 5 species of shorebird made it worth the all the hard walking through sand that I put in, plus the wet feet from the surf that snuck up on me while I was scanning the ocean.
26 species:

Black Scoter

Bufflehead

Red-breasted Merganser

Common Loon

Northern Gannet

Double-crested Cormorant

Brown Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Cooper's Hawk

Black-bellied Plover

Ruddy Turnstone

Red Knot

Sanderling

Dunlin

Ring-billed Gull

Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Northern Flicker

American Crow

Carolina Chickadee

Carolina Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Song Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

American Goldfinch

Reed's Sod Farm 11/5--American Pipit flock

Reports of a large flock of American Pipits at the sod farm along Route 539, the reliable spot in September for American Golden Plovers, sent Shari and me out the door this morning. We've seen American Pipits before, but the most, at one time was 3 on the King Ranch in Texas many years ago. They were spread out on the sod, a fair distance away from the road, but easily seen with the scope and easily, if tediously, counted. I made it 88 birds. Impressive to me and, apparently, to eBird, which flagged the count (not the species) as unusual.

88 pipits is about 10 times more pipits than I've seen in the aggregate until today.

Cape May County 11/2--White-winged Scoter, Northern Gannet

I thought I had a good idea today when I suggested we go down to the Avalon Seawatch on a day that was not bitterly cold, windy and gray. Looking at the eBird reports I saw that literally thousands of scoters were being recorded in the last few days. Granted, those counts are over a long day, but I thought we'd be able to see some good numbers of ducks. But I was wrong. There was very little action this morning and what action there was, well, it was going on too far away for these old eyes to identify. I guess when the weather is not lousy, the ducks are scarce. It is a commonplace that stormy weather brings in the birds. I suppose we'll try again on some sub-freezing day in January.

Despite being wrong, we still managed to get a couple of year birds today, plus we saw some birds that for us are out of the ordinary. Like the FOS Purple Sandpiper on the rocks at Avalon which was literally the first bird I saw today. Too far away to get any decent pictures. Also far away, but obvious in flight, were our FOY Northern Gannets. How we managed to not see gannets all year mystifies me. Shari was sure we had, but my records say "no."

Peering over the rocks I could see some ducks in the water but our angle of view was lousy, so we drove around the corner and walked on the jetty and there we were able to view a small mixed flock of hen White-winged Scoters and Black Scoters. I thought the Black Scoters were the new birds for the year but the FOY turned out to be the White-winged variety. Very small numbers in comparison to recent listings but, as I always say, you only need to see one.

As if I ever needed proof that I should never try going on a pelagic, I got motion sickness just looking at the rough ocean through the scope. Motion sickness standing motionless on dry land--pathetic.

We drove down to the Wetlands Institute to each our lunch on the picnic table and were happily surprised to find an immature White-crowned Sparrow. A couple of trees, one bare and one evergreen, were alive with Yellow-rumped Warblers and Shari pointed out, mixed in with them, a Palm Warbler, pumping its telltale tail.

With Avalon turning out to be a busy we were at a slight loss as to what to do next and decided that we were so close to Cape May we might as well go down there. I was pretty sure we'd find ducks there and we did, though they were ducks you'd expect find on ponds and marshes not the ocean. American Wigeons dominated the counts. There was a report of a Eurasian Wigeon on Lighthouse Pond but despite a thorough search of each and every wigeon on the pond we came up empty.

We had 41 species in Cape May County which is pretty shabby but I can think of the day as the Quality vs. Quantity kind.

Species                            Location

Canada Goose     Cape May Point SP

Mute Swan     Cape May Point SP

Gadwall     Cape May Point SP

American Wigeon     Cape May Point SP

Mallard     Cape May Point SP

Northern Shoveler     Cape May Point SP

Northern Pintail     Cape May Point SP

Green-winged Teal     Cape May Point SP

Lesser Scaup     Cape May Point SP

White-winged Scoter     Avalon--8th St. Jetty

Black Scoter     Avalon--8th St. Jetty

Ruddy Duck     Cape May Point SP

Pied-billed Grebe     Cape May Point SP

Northern Gannet     Avalon Seawatch

Double-crested Cormorant     Avalon Seawatch

Great Egret     Wetlands Institute

Snowy Egret     Wetlands Institute

Little Blue Heron     Wetlands Institute

Turkey Vulture     Wetlands Institute

Sharp-shinned Hawk     Cape May Point SP

American Coot     Cape May Point SP

Ruddy Turnstone     Avalon Seawatch

Sanderling     Avalon Seawatch

Purple Sandpiper     Avalon Seawatch

Ring-billed Gull     Cape May Point SP

Herring Gull     Avalon Seawatch

Great Black-backed Gull     Cape May Point SP

Mourning Dove     St. Mary's dune crossing

American Crow     Cape May Point SP

Tree Swallow     St. Mary's dune crossing

Carolina Chickadee     Cape May Point SP

Carolina Wren     Cape May Point SP

Gray Catbird     Cape May Point SP

Northern Mockingbird     Wetlands Institute

Palm Warbler     Wetlands Institute

Yellow-rumped Warbler     Wetlands Institute

Song Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

White-throated Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

White-crowned Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

Northern Cardinal     Cape May Point SP

House Sparrow     Wetlands Institute

How NOT to Save Money When Food Shopping

The other day I was in our local Stop & Shop buying vegetables and fruit--peppers, onions, tomatoes, broccoli rabe, an avocado, some salad greens--nothing special, just basic foodstuffs. At the checkout counter Stop & Shop's has a policy in which the cashier, after ringing you up, has to inform you (and everyone else on line) how much money you just saved on your purchase, while circling it in pen on your receipt. On a $19 bill I saved 34 cents--the avocado was on sale for $1.66.

After her announcement of this risible savings the cashier shrugged and said, "You don't save much money when you eat healthy."

I'm sure Stop & Shop's managers would appreciate her revealing their dark merchandising strategy.