Story Behind the Sign (Or, "Shari, I don't think we're in Brooklyn anymore")

Last week I was behind this Silverado and snapped a quick shot through the windshield for my signs collection. Today, as I was pulling into the Manchester town dump, the truck was in front of me again. When we parked at the dumpster I asked the owner what the sign on his tailgate meant. As I suspected, he felt the truck was a lemon and then proceeded to tell me his tale of woe. Apparently there is something wrong with the computer in the truck that is "irreparable" and neither his dealer nor GM will take the truck back and give him a new one. His misadventures with local Chevy dealerships were disheartening since one of them works on our Saturn.

Of course, I knew I was getting a biased account. It is truly hard for me to believe that any dealer would tell a customer to "get the fuck out" of his shop. It isn't hard for me to believe, though, given my own experiences with the GM ignition debacle, that something is seriously wrong with his car.

He told me that he's going to court with GM and that soon he has to give a deposition to GM's lawyers. He's a retired "prototype tester," so he feels he has an advantage over the average car buyer since he drove vehicles for a living. He's a little crusty, a little arrogant, and very pissed off. It occurred to me that all this might add up to him being the type of guy who thought he could fight GM on his own. I asked him, in parting, if he had a lawyer.

"Oh yeah! I got me one of them crazy lawyers--he's Jewish!"

I'm glad I asked him in parting, because I didn't want to talk to him anymore.

Great Bay Blvd WMA 6/10--Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Great Bay Blvd.

After my 2nd trip to Lakehurst this month, where I saw pretty much everything I saw last week only in better weather and light, Mike & I decided to continue the birding day. Our first stop was Railroad Avenue in Waretown where we looked, fruitlessly, for over an hour, for the Mississippi Kite that has been reported there for the last week or so. We were joined by other frustrated birders and had to answer many questions from the locals as to why we were walking slowly up and down their street with our necks craned to perfectly cloudless, cerulean sky. Every once in a while we'd get excited if a gull or a vulture flew over to provide a false alarm. Looking for a rarity can be like holding a losing stock--you know you should cut your losses, but you don't want to take the loss. You hold or stay, hoping you'll go into the plus column. Sometimes you do, but the longer you hold or stay, the less likely you will.

After that we headed down to Great Bay Blvd, hoping to add some year birds to our lists. Mike still needed Little Blue Heron and we both needed Brown Pelican and Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. It didn't look good for any of these species until on our way back, just as we were about to go over one of the wooden bridges, Mike spotted a bird just off the water that wasn't an egret or ibis. Naturally, there was a car behind us, so we could stop. Instead we crossed the bridge, turned around and went back over. As we crossed again going south I put my binoculars on the bird and saw that it was the Yellow-crowned. It posed for pictures and we were both pretty pleased. We hadn't exactly given up, but we were in the process of leaving.

Immature Black-crowned Night-Heron

On the way north up the road we came across a trio of waders--Snowy Egret, Glossy Ibis and an immature night-heron. Our first impression was that of another Yellow-crown, but after we looked more closely at the bill we thought not. When Mike said the bill was bi-colored, I said that it was a Black-crown, using Shari's mnemonic: Black bill = yellow, yellow bill = black. It's that simple and why people spend hours debating immature night-heron I don't know. Actually I do: they can't see the bill well enough and then you're thrown back on structure and "giss."

To the birder we told it was a Yellow-crown I can only say, "Oops, sorry." At least we told her where to find the adult.

I had 27 species while we  slalomed up and down the boulevard of broken asphalt avoiding the many Diamondback Terrapins making their way from one side of the marsh to the other. Mike also had a Cooper's Hawk and a distant American Oystercatcher that I missed.

Double-crested Cormorant  2
Great Egret  15
Snowy Egret  10
Black-crowned Night-Heron  5     
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  1     
Glossy Ibis  10
Osprey  5
Clapper Rail  4     Heard
Willet  10
Semipalmated Sandpiper  20
Laughing Gull  75
Herring Gull  50
Great Black-backed Gull  5
Common Tern  3
Forster's Tern  1
Mourning Dove  3
Willow Flycatcher  1
Fish Crow  1
Tree Swallow  2
Barn Swallow  25
Gray Catbird  1
Common Yellowthroat  4
Yellow Warbler  1     Heard, end of the road
Seaside Sparrow  10
Song Sparrow  3
Red-winged Blackbird  20
Boat-tailed Grackle  10

Double Trouble SP 6/8--Black-billed Cuckoo

I went to Double Trouble with, appropriately, 2 goals: to get in a long walk and to see if I could gather in the Acadian Flycatcher for the county list. Both goals accomplished. I walked out onto Gowdy Road and just before it intersects with Hooper Lane (quaint how what amount to levees are named) I heard the explosive "Pizza!" I waited, heard the bird call about 10 times clearly but pretty deep in the woods. I knew this one wasn't going to show, but with that part of the mission achieved, I proceeded to walk what amounts to 3 different loops around the bogs.

Across from the bog along Sweetwater Lane I heard a Veery, flagged as rare for the county in June, but I always hear one at Double Trouble, though this particular spot was an odd place to get one. It was while I was walking along Mud Dam Road, the more customary area for this bird (and where both I and another birder have already listed it there this year) where I was listening hard, if such a thing is possible, that I heard my year bird for the day, a Black-billed Cuckoo. It was pretty far up the road, but I clearly heard the repetitive "coo-coo-coo-coo." I've heard BB Cuckoos sometimes incessantly repeat the coo-coo." This bird did it in 2 sets of about of 10 coos each then shut up. Black-billed Cuckoo was not a bird I was thinking about today, so that was a happy surprise.

Walking around the loudest and most common bird that I heard was Ovenbird. They seemed to be anywhere there were woods. I finally saw one along Mud Dam and then, walking a little one-way path that goes down to the creek I came upon a crowd of them, very vocal and visible. I think I had 4 or 5 of them zipping around the branches around and above me. You hear 10 Ovenbirds for every one you see, so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of one.

Here's an arcane reference: Doesn't the bird in the bottom photo look like Jerry Colonna? All those who know who Jerry Colonna was, raise your hand. (Hi Mom!)

While making my 3rd and final loop, which takes me out to the lake and then back to the parking lot, I saw another cuckoo, briefly. Really, I only saw a part of the bird, enough of it to know that it wasn't a dove. I figured I'd have to let that one go as a "spuh" until, on my way back I made a minor loop of the graveyard (I believe the original owners still have an easement to bury their family in the park) when I heard the "gowp," very softly of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Looking up, I saw it quite clearly, though it refused to stay still and hopped up the branches of the tree it was in then flew and landed in a few different trees, each a little further away. But I did see all the field marks, so I it was a two cuckoo day and 3 county birds. And a little over 3 miles hiked.
32 speciesGreat Egret  1     Lake
Turkey Vulture  3
Cooper's Hawk  1     Mud Dam Road
Yellow-billed Cuckoo  1     
Black-billed Cuckoo  1     Heard Mud Dam Road
Northern Flicker  1
Acadian Flycatcher  1     Heard Gowdy Road
Eastern Phoebe  2
Great Crested Flycatcher  3     Heard
Eastern Kingbird  3
White-eyed Vireo  1     Heard Mud Dam Road
Yellow-throated Vireo  1     Heard Mud Dam Road
Red-eyed Vireo  5
Blue Jay  2
Fish Crow  1     Heard
Barn Swallow  4     Nest beneath bridge, customary spot
Carolina Chickadee  2
Carolina Wren  4
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  3
Veery  1     
Wood Thrush  2     Heard
Gray Catbird  25
Ovenbird  20
Black-and-white Warbler  2     Heard
Common Yellowthroat  20
Pine Warbler  5
Prairie Warbler  6
Eastern Towhee  5     Heard
Northern Cardinal  1     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Brown-headed Cowbird  2     Heard
American Goldfinch  2

Assunpink 6/7--Yellow-breasted Chat

FAA Navigation Beacon at Assunpink WMA

There is a fine line between persistence and stubbornness. I have erased that line.

The winner of my "Most Effort Expended to Find It" award goes to Yellow-breasted Chat which I finally found today in the fields around the navigation beacon at Assunpink. It was my 3rd trip there in the last 2 weeks where I have spent hours tramping the tick infested paths looking for this very large warbler, obsessively circling back to a corner of one of the fields where last year I spotted one. It wasn't until I sincerely invoked the magical words, "Well, I guess I'm giving up on this bird," that I heard a chat in last year's place. I could count it, but I wasn't really satisfied.  I looked into the fields without much hope of seeing it--look at all that undifferentiated green. Then I saw a bird pop up in a bush. Yes, a very distant chat:

Can you find the chat? It's in there.

As I was moving along the path, hoping to at least get a better angle on the bird, I heard another chat close behind me. I turned, thinking it was deep in a tree directly in front of me, but turning a bit to my right I saw the bird "naked eye," singing.

 I looked at it closely for a few seconds through my binoculars then saw that it might be a cooperative bird and took some shots.

According to my records, I spent 7 hours and 44 minutes and trudged 6.3 miles altogether in order to find this bird and did not, amazingly, pick up one tick. In the course of looking for this bird in my 3 visits I also came up with Alder Flycatcher (a rarity hereabouts) a Horned Lark, lots of Indigo Buntings, and was able to watch the American Kestrels go in and out of their nest box. I walked out of the fields satisfied that my persistence/stubbornness had paid off but also wondering if they really had or was it just conceding defeat that made the chats show themselves?
29 species
Canada Goose  2     f/o
Mourning Dove  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Willow Flycatcher  2
White-eyed Vireo  3
Tufted Titmouse  1
Carolina Wren  1     Heard
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
Eastern Bluebird  2
Wood Thrush  2     Heard
American Robin  6
Gray Catbird  15
Northern Mockingbird  1
Cedar Waxwing  2
Ovenbird  1     Heard Norway Spruce grove
Common Yellowthroat  15
Yellow Warbler  4
Yellow-breasted Chat  2     both singing.
Eastern Towhee  4
Chipping Sparrow  1
Field Sparrow  10
Grasshopper Sparrow  1     Heard
Song Sparrow  1
Northern Cardinal  2     Heard
Indigo Bunting  4
Red-winged Blackbird  5
Common Grackle  1
Brown-headed Cowbird  2
American Goldfinch  1

Old Mine Road 6/6--Cerulean Warbler

Buttermilk Falls, about 20 miles up
Old Mine Road

We made what has become our annual trip up to Old Mine Road to bird along with Mike & Pete on about 20 miles of road running along the Delaware River, looking mostly for warblers and flycatchers, of which there was no dearth.

It is a long ride up there, so to avoid arising at 4:30 in the morning we broke up the trip by staying in Bridgewater on Friday night, thanks to the hospitality of our friend Bob Auster, who, in addition, also knew the best way to get there.

It was a big group that assembled at the parking lot of the Kittatinny Visitor's Center at the Delaware Water Gap and the lot itself was jumping with birds, including Cedar Waxwings, Baltimore Orioles, a couple of soaring Common Ravens and a Bald Eagle.

The real appeal of this area and the main reason I'd venture so far from home, is nesting warblers. The Old Mine Road IBA is the only place in NJ that Cerulean Warbler nests. Since their numbers have declined by 80% in recent years, if you want to see one, here's the place to go.

Unfortunately, they're hard to see, as are all the warblers. The heavy foliage that provides protection and food in the form of bugs, also shields them from view very effectively. Last year, Shari & I only got to hear a Cerulean. It counts but... it isn't like Warbling Vireo, which is such a nothing bird that if you don't see it, you don't care. Cerulean Warbler is a lovely little sky-blue bird. You really want to see it.

This year we got lucky. We heard one fairly early on into the trip and with all those eyes searching one of our group found it, high in a tree, another factor that makes finding these birds challenging. It was only a silhouette due to bad lighting, but we did see one. Another was found a little further up the road and much of the group reassembled there, but after a few minutes, with everyone shouting out contradictory directions, I gave up and went to look with Pete for a Blackburnian Warbler (which I never found). Meanwhile, Shari & Bob stuck with it and came back to the car gushing about how beautiful the warbler was. "It was so blue, it made me want to cry," declared Bob. They did their best, in the nicest possible way, to make me feel bad. They did an okay job.

However, at another stop up the road, about an hour later, we found three more Ceruleans, and this time I got gorgeous looks at two of them as they chased each other through bare branches. Both of my previous listings of Cerulean have been of the mediocre Better View Desired variety. This time, I got them. And next year, I'd like to see them again!

I have on my list, I think, 13 species of warbler. Less than half of them I saw. We heard, very clearly, a couple of  Worm-eating Warblers, but only a few of the group managed to find this ground hugging bird. Again, multiple contradictory and/or vague directions wore me out. There were Hooded Warblers in abundance; none were seen. At least I know what they sound like. We did get great looks at a Blue-winged Warbler, its little beak positively stuffed with insects. It must have had a nest nearby. There was a pair of Prairie Warblers in the same spot. Most of the group got more excited about them than I did. I see and hear them all the time around here. There were also a couple of brief sightings of Louisiana Waterthrush one of which I was able to see. The other, at Buttermilk Falls, in Sussex County (had to start a new county list) was a "heard only."

Flycatchers were a little sparse but we did have a very close, singing, Acadian Flycatcher at lunch, which all the group got to see, some walking up to view while munching on sandwiches. Other birds I liked getting on the NJ list were Pileated Woodpecker (great views as it hacked away at a stump) and Least Flycatcher (the 2nd bird on my Sussex County list).

In all we had 58 species, one more than we managed last year (the group as a whole had, I believe, 75).
Canada Goose  6
Mallard  1     river, parking area
Wild Turkey  1     Hen
Green Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  4
Bald Eagle  3
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
Killdeer  2
Spotted Sandpiper  1     Heard, boat launch
Mourning Dove  3
Yellow-billed Cuckoo  2     Heard
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Northern Flicker  1     Heard
Pileated Woodpecker  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  5
Acadian Flycatcher  1
Least Flycatcher  1
Eastern Phoebe  2     Heard
Great Crested Flycatcher  6
Yellow-throated Vireo  5     Heard
Warbling Vireo  6     Heard
Red-eyed Vireo  5     Heard
Blue Jay  1     Heard
American Crow  1
Common Raven  2
Northern Rough-winged Swallow  2
Tree Swallow  1
Tufted Titmouse  2     Heard
Veery  4     Heard
Wood Thrush  5     Heard
American Robin  3
Gray Catbird  10
Cedar Waxwing  5
Ovenbird  30     Heard
Worm-eating Warbler  2     Heard
Louisiana Waterthrush  2
Blue-winged Warbler  1
Black-and-white Warbler  1     Heard
Common Yellowthroat  4     Heard
Hooded Warbler  8     Heard
American Redstart  5
Cerulean Warbler  4
Northern Parula  1     Heard
Yellow Warbler  6
Pine Warbler  1     Heard
Prairie Warbler  2
Eastern Towhee  4     Heard
Chipping Sparrow  3
Field Sparrow  1     Heard
Song Sparrow  2     Heard
Scarlet Tanager  2
Rose-breasted Grosbeak  1     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Common Grackle  5
Brown-headed Cowbird  3
Baltimore Oriole  4

Whitesbog 6/4--Acadian Flycatcher

Acadian Flycatcher

Last week I went over to Double Trouble in the hopes of getting an Acadian Flycatcher. For the last couple of years I've had success over there but like Assunpink with the chat, I had no luck getting my target. Today, walking through the village at Whitesbog, with that bird completely out of mind, I heard the tell-tale "Pizza!" Another murky day, I didn't expect to find it in the green, aquarium light of the woods, but sometimes you get lucky and my binoculars happened to alight on the bird, singing, as it were, right in front of me. Not the greatest picture, but I was surprised it stayed still long enough for me to get a shot at all. So, I got a year bird, but in the "wrong" place--this part of Whitesbog is in Burlington County; I wanted it for Ocean County.

Swamp Sparrow

Out on the bogs things were fairly quiet, though I did see a Green Heron flyover and was able to match up a Swamp Sparrow with its song. I couldn't figure out what bird was trilling until a little pishing brought the bird out into the open. That's really the only way I can memorize bird song--I have to see the bird singing. I doubt I'll be fooled by a Swamp Sparrow again. Oddly, I recorded more birds in the Burlington section of the bogs than I did in the Ocean County part, even though I spent much more time, and walked much further, in Ocean County. However, in Ocean County, I had the pleasure of seeing birds I was only hearing in Burlington. I also managed to get another flycatcher--Eastern-Wood Pewee--to sit still long enough to take a picture:

Eastern-Wood Pewee

Whitesbog (Burlington County)
24 species
Wood Duck  1     Heard
Mallard  5
Great Blue Heron  1
Green Heron  1
Turkey Vulture  1
Chimney Swift  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  1     Heard
Acadian Flycatcher  1    
Willow Flycatcher  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  1     Heard
Purple Martin  1
Tree Swallow  5
Tufted Titmouse  1
American Robin  1     Heard
Gray Catbird  3
European Starling  4
Cedar Waxwing  1
Ovenbird  1     Heard
Common Yellowthroat  3     
Prairie Warbler  1     Heard
Chipping Sparrow  1     Heard
Song Sparrow  1
Swamp Sparrow  1     
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Whitesbog (Ocean County)
20 species
Turkey Vulture  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  1    
Willow Flycatcher  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  4
Eastern Kingbird  1
Fish Crow  1     Heard
Tree Swallow  10
Barn Swallow  5
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  3
Gray Catbird  20
Cedar Waxwing  3
Ovenbird  2     Heard
Black-and-white Warbler  3
Common Yellowthroat  10
Pine Warbler  5
Prairie Warbler  3
Eastern Towhee  3     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  20
Common Grackle  1
Orchard Oriole  1

Lakehurst (MDL Jt Base) 6/3--Upland Sandpiper

Today was our annual Audubon trip to the jump circle at the old Lakehurst Naval Base (now part of the McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Joint Base complex) to look for Upland Sandpiper and other grassland birds. the weather was unseasonably cool (read: cold) for June, so the birds were not very active but almost immediately upon arrival at the circle we heard the call of the Uppies, which sounds like the cartoon "wolf whistle" when a good-looking woman walks by. After a spell a few flew up, but distantly and a little later a few of us managed to see one walking in a bare patch but all in all, I've had much satisfying looks at these birds in previous years. Today, as Shari points out, basically gets it on the list.

We were able to get much better looks at Eastern Meadowlark, Horned Lark, and a really dramatic view of a Common Nighthawk flyover which made standing in the the damp worth the while, and a little farther on we managed American Kestrel in one spot and my first adult male (I've only seen immatures up to today) Orchard Oriole (going to a nest, no less) at our 3rd & final stop.

For what seemed a slow and uninspiring day I still managed 43 species and there were a few I missed, though nothing I'd kick myself over.
Canada Goose  12     f/o
Wild Turkey  4
Great Blue Heron  2
Black Vulture  2
Turkey Vulture  2
Cooper's Hawk  1
Killdeer  2
Upland Sandpiper  4
Herring Gull  5
Mourning Dove  1
Common Nighthawk  1
Chimney Swift  1
American Kestrel  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  1
Willow Flycatcher  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  1     Heard
Eastern Kingbird  3
Blue Jay  1     Heard
American Crow  1
Fish Crow  1     Heard
Horned Lark  3
Purple Martin  3
Tree Swallow  1
Barn Swallow  5
Carolina Chickadee  1     Heard
House Wren  1     Heard
Gray Catbird  1
European Starling  1
Cedar Waxwing  5
Ovenbird  2     Heard
Common Yellowthroat  2     Heard
Pine Warbler  1     Heard
Prairie Warbler  1     Heard
Eastern Towhee  2     Heard
Chipping Sparrow  2     Heard
Field Sparrow  2     Heard
Grasshopper Sparrow  1     Heard
Song Sparrow  1     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  2
Eastern Meadowlark  1
Common Grackle  4
Brown-headed Cowbird  2     Heard
Orchard Oriole  1