Warinanco Park 2/17--Pink-footed Goose

Pink-footed Goose (the one with the pink feet) with Canada Geese, Warinanco Park

Even though I have only birded Warinanco Park in Linden twice, I have a great fondness for it. Firstly, because Linden is my father's hometown; secondly, because when I was a child, he used to take me for rowboat rides in the lake. So I am told. Like most memories, I only remember remembering this. Finally, because 9 years ago, Shari & I got our our life Cackling Geese in this park, an extraordinary flock of 6. It was then that I remarked to her that it was the first time I had been in that park in 50 years.

Mike's friend Paul from Illinois is spending the long weekend in Jersey birding, and today the three of us started at Warinanco Park to get one of the rare geese that have been in the state. A good opportunity for me because I haven't felt like chasing them on my own. We arrived at the park around 8 o'clock and even though I was the only one who had been there, I had no memory of the park's layout from 9 years ago. I did know that it wasn't very big, so we just started out looking for water. We found the lake (which, I remember remembering was much larger when I was a little boy) and though there was a large flock of geese on it, all of them were standard issue. We knew reports had it also on a baseball field, so we drove around until we found another flock of geese grazing on the grass. Another birder, whom we'd met first at the lake was there with his scope set up and he signaled to us that he had the bird we had come for, a Pink-footed Goose. Always good to have it pointed out, as it saves time and frustration, but we'd have found this one on our own as it wasn't tucked in with the other geese, as so often happens, but was right out in the middle, pink feet obvious. Year bird for Mike and me, life bird for Paul!

Today was dedicated to getting Paul lifers, so our next stop was down in Wall to look for the Barnacle Goose that hadn't been reported in a while (one was reported, late in the day, about 18 miles from where we were looking) and then down to Wreck Pond to look for the Tufted Duck that also seems to have disappeared. We then drove up to Sandy Hook to get easier birds that Paul needed, like 5 Great Cormorants hanging roosting on a tower in the shipping channel. We didn't spend a lot of time at the Hook; instead we made a tour of the north shore ponds. Paul thought he had Lesser Black-backed Gull on his life list, but upon examination, couldn't find it listed. We found one on the shore of Sylvan Lake, where they are often easy to find. Good pictures for Paul too.

Purple Sandpiper, Manasquan Inlet

Stubbornness brought us back to Wreck Pond. Stubbornness still didn't get us a Tufted Duck. We had plans to go to Barnegat Light tomorrow where we would pick up a couple of lifers for Paul, but just in case, we stopped at Manasquan Inlet. This year there are more Purple Sandpipers there than at Barnegat. I found a couple flying in the inlet and one landed across the way on the north jetty. Paul was focusing on that one when a flock of 50 appeared, winging back and forth between the jetties. Fortunately, quite a few landed close to us on our side and Paul had good shots of this lifer too. I took one "for-the-hell-of-it" shot because I like the facial expression these sandpipers have--somewhere between quizzical and Weltschmerz. Do I anthropomorphize? Very well then, I anthropomorphize.

So, 4 lifers for Paul, one year bird for Mike & me, made for a very good day. Not a huge number of species (39 that I listed) but pretty good for hit-and-run birding.

Locations birded:
Garden State Parkway,  Lake Takanassee; Lake of the Lilies; Manasquan Inlet; Mathis Veteran's Memorial Park; Marshall's Pond, Sandy Hook; Shark River; Silver Lake; Sylvan Lake; Warinanco Park; Wreck Pond

Snow Goose   3

Pink-footed Goose   1

Brant   580

Canada Goose   613

Mute Swan   101

Northern Shoveler   2

Gadwall   13

American Wigeon   8

Mallard   27

American Black Duck   9

Canvasback   20

Redhead   40

Ring-necked Duck  5

Greater Scaup   75

Lesser Scaup   13

Long-tailed Duck   1

Bufflehead   67

Hooded Merganser   12

Red-breasted Merganser   3

Ruddy Duck   9

Common Loon   1

Horned Grebe   1

Great Cormorant   5

Great Blue Heron   2

Turkey Vulture   1

Bald Eagle   1

American Coot   27

Purple Sandpiper   50

Ring-billed Gull   118

Herring Gull   31

Lesser Black-backed Gull   1

Great Black-backed Gull   21

Rock Pigeon   1

Blue Jay   1

American Robin   200

Northern Mockingbird   1

European Starling   100

Cedar Waxwing   2

Song Sparrow   3

Whitesbog 2/12--Ross's Geese (pl.)

Show me a flock of 500 Snow Geese and I'll never pick out the rarity. Show me two white geese and I'll take a longer look at them. This morning, at Whitesbog, I was counting the Canada Geese and Tundra Swans in the lower bog when I saw two white geese among the brown ones. As I couldn't recall ever having seen Snow Geese at Whitesbog, I thought that was pretty interesting to up my patch list. Then I noticed that the geese were "cute." They had small bills, round heads. They didn't look goofy like Snow Geese. Naturally, I didn't have my scope with me. After I took some pictures and blew them up on the preview screen of my camera I was pretty certain that I had not one, but TWO Ross's Geese.  I sent one of those pictures via text message off to one of the Burlco experts (the wonders of technology) and he confirmed what I thought I had.

As I've never seen more than one Ross's Goose at a time, seeing two was extraordinary for me. There are a couple of rarer geese up north that for various reasons I haven't felt like chasing, so finding my own rarity alleviated any nagging feeling about what I should be doing as opposed to what I felt like doing.

Walking around the Ocean County side, I came across a new water feature that I don't know how I feel about. Across from the NW corner of the Upper Reservoir there is a bog that sometimes has interesting ducks in it. I walk around it about half the time I'm there--it's also good for bluebirds and yellowthroats in the appropriate seasons. Today there was a lot of heavy equipment rolling around the roads--between the 3 inches of rain and the treads of the excavators  the roads are a complete mess. I was actually sinking into the wet sand in the middle of the road as I walked and these roads are usually hard enough to safely drive a little sedan on. At first I noticed that they had cleared out a lot of brush and trees which I thought was okay as it would make viewing easier. When I got halfway around the bog, though, I saw that it had been breached, with water pouring in from the marsh on the other side of the road. I have no idea why this was done (or exactly who is doing it, the state or the farmer who leases the bogs) and I have no idea what birds this new development will attract or repel. All I know is that one of my walk options is gone and the cut right now is ugly.

Brigantine Island, Brig 2/10--American Oystercatcher, Greater Yellowlegs, Willet, Peregrine Falcon, Eastern Towhee

Peregrine Falcon, Brig

Mike & I tried again for wintering shorebirds down on Brigantine Island (north of Atlantic City) again and this time we were more successful. Our first stop, at the "south cove" yielded our FOY Greater Yellowlegs (distant, but identifiable by said legs plus manic behavior), and tour of the dead end streets of the island itself brought us our first looks of the year at American Oystercatchers (unfortunately, Shari wasn't with us for her favorite bird) and a couple of fairly large flocks of Willets (of the Western sub-species, long-rumored to be split into a separate species) on both sides of the island. With the American Kestrel Mike found on a utility pole (year bird for him) we did pretty well in the hour or so we spent on the island. Not a lot of birds, but birds we wanted.
Brant 100
Canada Goose 50
American Black Duck 10
Greater Scaup 6
Bufflehead 20
Red-breasted Merganser 1 Hen, marina
American Oystercatcher 2
Greater Yellowlegs   7
Willet (Western) 30
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 1
Rock Pigeon 15
Mourning Dove 1
American Kestrel 1
House Sparrow 1

Mid-morning we entered Brig and did one loop around. Ever since the hacking tower was taken down a few months ago after it was decided that Peregrine Falcons really never should have been established there, getting that raptor on the list is no longer a gimme. However, we finally saw one on an Osprey platform, just after we passed the usual owl jam of cars stopped for the persisting Snowy Owl. It's a little sad when a Snowy Owl becomes a ho-hum bird, but that's the case for those of us who don't care if they get a photograph of one. The falcon was probably commuting from Atlantic City where there is a nest on one of the hotels. At least the casinos are good for something.

Mostly we found ducks, geese, and swans. A flock of 20 Canvasbacks were new for the month and Atlantic County. A contingent of robins was on Jen's Trail. Just as we were leaving we heard an Eastern Towhee's "chwink" coming from the direction of the new headquarters building. Aside from the Roughie, there was nothing today that I wasn't sure to see sometime this year, but 6 year birds feels like a productive day.
Our Brig List:
34 species
Snow Goose 2500
Brant 700
Canada Goose 55
Mute Swan 15
Gadwall 15
American Wigeon 20
Mallard 30
American Black Duck 200
Northern Pintail 7
Green-winged Teal 1
Canvasback 20
Bufflehead 16
Hooded Merganser 28
Great Blue Heron 3
Turkey Vulture 2
Northern Harrier 1
Bald Eagle 1
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 4
Mourning Dove 3 Feeder
Snowy Owl 1 sitting on ground
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Heard entrance
Peregrine Falcon 1 North dike. Just visiting nowadays
Blue Jay 3 Heard
American Crow 7
Carolina Chickadee 3
Carolina Wren 1 Heard
Eastern Bluebird 1 Heard upland section
Hermit Thrush 1 Heard
American Robin 25
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1 Visitor's Ctr
Song Sparrow 1 Feeder
Eastern Towhee 1
Red-winged Blackbird 5

Manasquan River WMA 2/9--Hermit Thrush

Hermit Thrush

Manasquan River WMA is not famed as a winter locale. The other three seasons it is a good spot for warblers, but I wanted to see if I might find in the woods some cold weather species that have eluded me so far and/or interesting raptors flying over the fields. I succeeded in the former with a Hermit Thrush that I found in a huge flock of robins (sometimes it pays to look at every robin), but as to the latter goal, I had one Cooper's Hawk and one unidentified raptor that was too far and too fast before it flew into the woods. 

Mostly what I saw were robins. There were a lot of little trails that I never noticed before, probably because in spring and summer they're too grown over (or too potentially tick-laden) to explore. And all along those trail the forest floor was athrob with robins kicking around the leaf litter. Along one trail that somehow goes down to the Manasquan River (although the closest I've ever been able to get was a wall of phragmites) a flock of about 100 robins were flying back and forth, eating the little red berries pictures above with the thrush. 

There were a few pockets of birds in various spots, but nothing else remarkable. I managed 17 species for my efforts, which is pretty good considering the low numbers I've been coming up with of late.

Cooper's Hawk 1
Mourning Dove 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 3
Blue Jay 2 Heard
American Crow 1 Heard
Carolina Chickadee 15 Probably an underestimate
Tufted Titmouse 4
White-breasted Nuthatch 2 Heard
Carolina Wren 2
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 150 Probably an underestimate
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
White-throated Sparrow 10
Song Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 2
American Goldfinch 2

Song Sparrow

Toms River 2/5--Killdeer, Belted Kingfisher, Brown Thrasher

Killdeer, Shelter Cove Park

I took walks in a couple of locations in Toms River I hadn't visited in quite a while, stopping first at Shelter Cove park. This is a park primarily given over to recreation that abuts the salt marsh that goes up to Cattus Island Park, but it attracts a lot of birds to its edges, beach, and underwater soccer fields. They must play some interesting matches in Toms River, because those fields are not only constantly flooded but they are also a geese magnet with the accompanying Vienna sausage-shaped goose shit all over the fields.

The geese were there, in large numbers, and mixed in among them was the bird I had hoped to find, a single Killdeer walking unperturbedly amongst the giants. The first Killdeer I ever saw in Ocean County was at this park, on a median in the parking lot and usually that is where I find them--on the drier swards that border the asphalt but I'll take 'em where I find 'em. Killdeer have been scarce this year, so far. I theorize that the extreme cold weather pushed them out--can't find little worms or bugs when the ground is either frozen or covered in snow. I also added Brown Thrasher to the year list, briefly glimpsed at the back of the park along the fence line.

Belted Kingfisher, Ocean County Parks Offices

Shelter Cove is not large enough for a good walk unless you're going to obsessively circle the fields hoping for something new, which is fine except that watching where you step gets tiresome, so after about an hour I drove up a couple of miles to the Ocean County Parks Office grounds, which is really an extension of  the trails at Cattus Island. At the boat launch, I heard, then quickly found, another bird that has been missing from the area this winter, a Belted Kingfisher. I think the weather has also moved them out of their normal spots, since diving into ice is probably not a long-term survival strategy. Now that the weather of late has been more "normal," these birds, like the Killdeer, have a chance to make a living again.

My last stop was just because I was passing by on my way home--Marshall's Pond, where I tried for the 3rd time to find the reported Cackling Goose. I looked carefully through 400 or so geese and didn't see one. Some geese were flying out, while some geese were flying in, so that may explain why a few hours later my friend Steve found the cackler. Or, it could have been there all the time and I just stink at identifying that species. But the stop wasn't a complete bust. While I had my binoculars up, scanning the geese at they floated by, I felt something pressing on my wrist. I thought I was brushing up against a tree branch. When I looked to my right, I saw that a Sharp-shinned Hawk had perched there. When it realized I was not a stump, it flew across the pond and perched in a real tree. I've never had so much as a chickadee land on me, so to find a hawk very close to my face was both exhilarating and scary.

For the morning I had 28 species, 3 year birds, and upped my Ocean County list by 5

702 Canada Goose

4 Mute Swan

2 American Black Duck

5 Black Scoter

12 Bufflehead

1 Great Blue Heron

1 Turkey Vulture

1 Sharp-shinned Hawk

1 Killdeer

10 Herring Gull

1 Great Black-backed Gull

1 Belted Kingfisher

1 Red-bellied Woodpecker

1 Downy Woodpecker

1 Northern Flicker

1 American Crow

5 Carolina Chickadee

3 Tufted Titmouse

2 White-breasted Nuthatch

4 Carolina Wren

13 American Robin

1 Brown Thrasher

1 Northern Mockingbird

5 European Starling

3 Yellow-rumped Warbler

6 Dark-eyed Junco

2 Savannah Sparrow

3 Song Sparrow

Manasquan Inlet 2/4--Red-necked Grebe

It wasn't until Mike & I made our last stop, at Manasquan Inlet, after birding 10 different spots, that I finally got a year bird, and it wasn't easy, standing in a light rain on the jetty, scanning the swells, waiting for the Red-necked Grebe to pop up from one of its dives. I thought I had had a year bird earlier in the day at Sylvan Lake when we found a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls in the mixed gull flock standing on the ice, but after checking my year list, it was only a county bird (Monmouth) as we had one in Burlington a couple of weeks ago. There was no chance I was going to get a photo of that grebe today, out in the mouth of the inlet, with my slow-focusing camera

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Trumpeter Swans on Assunpink Lake

We started the day at Assunpink. Four of the Trumpeter Swans continued on the main part of the lake and we saw another Cackling Goose as well. The lake was rich with waterfowl--we had Redheads, Canvasbacks, Ring-neck Ducks, pintails, Buffleheads and more. In all we had 43 species at that stop, but the one we had come to look for, the Long-eared Owl, we struck out on. A hard to find bird, even if you know exactly where it is, we only had a vague notion of the area in which had been sighted, and despite more than a half hour of looking for owl wash on pines and cedars, and debating whether the dried white stuff was shit or sap, we gave up. It didn't help my mood to see another birder list the owl a little while after we left.

We went to the Shark River to look for the long-staying Eurasian Wigeon and found no wigeons at all. Then we started heading south (had we gone north we might have been in the vicinity of a Barnacle Goose that was reported when we were too far away to head back) checking the various ponds. That's where we had the Lesser Black-backed Gull. Most of the ponds were mostly frozen, so there were lots of standing waterfowl. Unfortunately, at Wreck Pond, we couldn't come up with the Tufted Duck. Naturally, it was reported after we left from the only vantage point we didn't try. 

Do you detect a theme of frustration here? Good, because now we're bringing frustration up a level to jumping up and down aggravation. We decided to try Manasquan Inlet as the weather was deteriorating, but stopped first to check out the sand bar in the river from the dead end of Baltimore Avenue. I checked eBird and saw that not one, but two gulls I need as Ocean County lifers had been reported about an hour and a half earlier at Lake of the Lilies, 5 minutes away. We got over there and saw a decent sized flock of gulls mostly standing on the ice. They weren't there in overwhelming numbers, so we had a chance to look at each and every Ring-bill, Herring, and Great Black-backed Gull and not see either the  Iceland or Black-headed Gull that had been there in the morning. I need those gulls

A few years ago, if you wanted to find a Redhead in Ocean County, your best bet was to go to Riverfront Landing in Toms River, sort through the Canvasbacks and hope to fine one. So last year, local birders were astounding to find them in hundreds in the bay area off Brick. The trend continues with big numbers on Lake of the Lilies this year. And, unlike last year when they were bobbing in the bay, they are very close and photographable. 

After our third or fourth scan of the gull flock we got an alert from a couple of birders who had just departed the lake that the Red-necked Grebe was at the inlet. Another 5 minute drive plus a 5 minute walk onto the jetty. We ran into Scott and Linda who were just coming off the jetty and assured us the grebe was still there. After looking the entire length of the inlet, Mike spotted the bird and it dove. I didn't see it the first, second, or third time it came up from its dive, a couple of times mistaking a Red-breasted Merganser hen for the bird. But then, when I was just about to dismiss the bird I was looking at as the merganser again, I realized it wasn't a duck and was, thank you, the Red-necked Grebe. With the rain coming down ever harder, we decided that 70 species was a pretty good day despite missing so many targets. Our last bird of the day was a Merlin Mike spotted zooming through as we sat at a light on Highway 35 in Wall. It was the 2nd Merlin I've seen this year at a traffic light!

My list for the day, with the locations visited:
Assunpink WMA; Highway 35, Wall; Lake Como; Lake of the Lilies; Maclearie Park; Manasquan Inlet; Shark River; Shark River Inlet; Spring Lake, Sylvan Lake; Wreck Pond

Snow Goose   1

Brant   406

Cackling Goose   1

Canada Goose   960

Mute Swan   177

Trumpeter Swan   4

Northern Shoveler   6

Gadwall   8

American Wigeon   6

Mallard   45

American Black Duck   20

Northern Pintail   3

Canvasback   7

Redhead   55

Ring-necked Duck   25

Greater Scaup   10

Lesser Scaup   2

Surf Scoter   2

Black Scoter   5

Long-tailed Duck   20

Bufflehead   202

Common Goldeneye   1

Hooded Merganser   82

Common Merganser   300

Red-breasted Merganser   22

Ruddy Duck   30

Common Loon   19

Horned Grebe   4

Red-necked Grebe   1

Double-crested Cormorant   1

Great Blue Heron   1

Black Vulture   1

Turkey Vulture   1

Cooper's Hawk   1

Bald Eagle   1

Red-tailed Hawk   3

American Coot   30

Sanderling   15

Purple Sandpiper   40

Ring-billed Gull   469

Herring Gull   970

Lesser Black-backed Gull   2

Great Black-backed Gull   151

Rock Pigeon   8

Mourning Dove   16

Red-bellied Woodpecker   3

Downy Woodpecker   2

Hairy Woodpecker   1

Northern Flicker   1

Merlin   1

Blue Jay   3

American Crow   2

Fish Crow   1

Carolina Chickadee   2

Tufted Titmouse   1

White-breasted Nuthatch   2

Carolina Wren   1

American Robin   15

Northern Mockingbird   1

European Starling   5

Yellow-rumped Warbler   5

Field Sparrow   3

White-throated Sparrow   3

Song Sparrow   5

Northern Cardinal   1

Red-winged Blackbird   1000

Common Grackle   30

Boat-tailed Grackle   1

House Finch   1

American Goldfinch   1

House Sparrow   10

Brig 2/3--Green-Winged Teal, Sharp-shinned Hawk

Green-winged Teal with Mallards

Let's all put on our little tin-foil hats and talk paranoia. When Mike, Pete, & I arrived at Brig at 7:45 this morning it was a brisk 18 degrees as shown on the dashboard thermometer. It was cold but with no wind I was actually able to stand at the Gull Pond and check out the few ducks on the ice (one of which turned out to be a FOY Green-winged Teal) without wearing gloves.

Our group went around the dikes twice. The sun came out, there was still no wind to speak of & it felt warmer, as you would expect. Yet, when we exited around 2 PM, the dashboard reading was still 18 degrees. As soon as we hit Rt 9, the reading changed to a more realistic 32 degrees. This is not the first time we've noticed this phenomenon at Brig: the temperature you go in with is the temperature you leave with, no matter how long you're there or what the weather does. Something, somewhere at Brig is jamming the temperature gauges on cars (Mike's is not the only one where we've seen this effect). WHY, the paranoid asks, doesn't whoever runs Brig want us to know what the real temperature is? Or is there something just strange with the weather station that is out in the middle of the refuge that has the effect of freezing car thermometers? It happens in all seasons too. You could go in  there on a summer morning at 72 degrees, be on the dikes at noon under a blazing sun, sweat pouring down your forehead into your eyes, yet the the little LED on the dashboard will still flash "72." And if there are radio waves effecting the car, what other alterations are they making in other electronics...or in our brains. Keep the tin-foil at the ready!

Because it is winter and because it is still very cold every other day, most of the water at Brig was, as Pete says, "stiff." Thousands of Snow Geese didn't care, but as to adding new birds for the year, the only other bird was at our last stop of the day, Mott's Creek, a part of Forsythe about 2 miles away, when we had a Sharp-shinned Hawk fly up off the road and over the car.

As we got on to the Wildlife Drive, we saw on the north dike a long line of cars and knew that one of the long-staying, supposedly rare, Snowy Owls was being viewed. We made our way to it. It was a life bird for at least one person in our group, so I shouldn't be dismissive of the bird, but really, when they're around, they aren't hard to find and they stand out like blobs of snow in the brown grass. The good thing about Snowy Owls at Brig is that you can look at them guilt-free, since they are almost always separated from photographers by moats of water and thus can't be harassed.

For our two trips around Brig I had 37 species, a respectable number given that many birds are smarter than birders and left long ago for warmer climes.
Snow Goose 3925
Brant 200
Canada Goose 150
Mute Swan 12
Gadwall 1
Mallard 55
American Black Duck 85
Northern Pintail 3
Green-winged Teal 1
Bufflehead 6
Hooded Merganser 7
Red-breasted Merganser 3 Two hens, one drake
Great Blue Heron 9
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 2
Northern Harrier 2
Cooper's Hawk 1
Bald Eagle 1
Red-tailed Hawk 2
Ring-billed Gull 1
Herring Gull 55
Great Black-backed Gull 3
Snowy Owl 1 Very white, with little streaking, indicates male.
Blue Jay 1 Heard
American Crow 3
Carolina Chickadee 3
Tufted Titmouse 1 Heard
Carolina Wren 2 Heard
Eastern Bluebird 6
American Robin 15
Northern Mockingbird 1 Gull Pond
Yellow-rumped Warbler 20
White-throated Sparrow 4
Song Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 1
Red-winged Blackbird 2 Road to Gull Pond
House Finch 7