Barnegat Inlet, 1/16

A nice sunny day persuaded me to kill my morning headache with a few aspirins and head out to Barnegat Inlet where I encountered the expected swarm of humanity. En route I stopped briefly at Florence on the Delware River to check for gulls and found very few of them, but a consolation prize of 2 Common Mergansers, my first for the year.

At Barnegat the tide was low, the action at the bay side of the jetty was very slow, so I ended up hiking all of the way out. There was a gaggle of photographers clustered around some tame Harlequin Ducks and a few Long-tailed Ducks. Dunlin, Ruddy Turnstone, Purple Sandpipers and one Black-bellied Plover were the shorebirds rock-hopping along the jetty. Further out at the inlet, and mostly on the far side were Great Cormorant, Black and Surf Scoter, Common Eider, more Long-tailed Duck, Common and Red-throated Loons - good scoter numbers but nothing else was at spectacular levels. A pretty good day under fairly mild conditions.