Despite the biting cold I made an afternoon run to Round Valley Reservoir and while there were still water birds around (Common Loon, American Coot, Gadwall, Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead) the number of passerines were very low indeed. Two interesting birds were a vocal Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and 8-10 Lesser Black-backed Gulls amongst the predominantly Ring-billed on the reservoir itself.
Headed further west to Oberly Road in Alpha near the PA border and found the expected Horned Lark flock in the fields. Amongst the somewhat flighty groups of Larks were a few Snow Buntings, and then when one flock settled close to me I spied a Lapland Longspur. Nothing was close enough for photographs, however and the light was particularly bad. Since it was relatively late in the day several large flocks of Snow Geese flew over, presumably from feeding grounds to the (south-east) en route to a roost at Merrill Creek Reservoir.
On the way back home I diverted via Califon and found the Raritan river to be frozen - not a huge surprise with overnight temps in the low single digits and daytime temperatures in the teens. In fact more reminiscent of the time I spent birding Duluth MN four years ago.....but without the owls.
Showing posts with label Califon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Califon. Show all posts
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Wild Goose Chase - Jan 4th
Barnacle Goose and Pink-footed Goose were in NJ and NYC respectively, which was enough of a lure to make me chase them.
But first I started out locally, visiting Pole Farm briefly to check on the pale phase Rough-legged Hawk which was hunting over the field off the Federal City Rd entrance, but too distant for photos. Then up to northern NJ and DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands to look for the Snowy Owl that seemed pretty reproducible there. About all it took to find it was to walk up to the other birders that were already there at 10am. Northern Harrier and Rough-legged Hawk were also present in this area. Thank God - at this rate I was going to miss all the Snowys during an invasion year, perhaps the best one in quite some time.
Feeling optimistic I skipped across Staten Island quickly, along the Belt and into Flushing Meadows Corona Park where I started scanning Canada Goose flocks to no avail. And driving the wrong way on roadways that were extremely badly signed. Mea culpa. I checked both north and south of the Long Island Expressway and found a few Canada Goose flocks and no Pink-foot. After a while, I gave up on this first version of the wild goose chase and headed back down the Belt. I decided to stop at Floyd Bennett Field to scope for water birds in Jamaica Bay, coming up with the usual suspects: Common Loon, Red-throated Loon, Horned Grebe, Red-breasted Merganser, Bufflehead and Common Goldeneye. I didn't find a Great Cormorant, however, often quite regular there in winter.
After that, I decided to try for the Western Grebe on the south shore of Staten Island. Thankfully this was a lot more cooperative, being seen well in NY waters from the pier just to the east of Mount Loretto. Also present were several Long-tailed Duck.
Then out of Staten Island by way of the Goethals Bridge and back north to DeKorte Park to see if the Snowy Owl was any closer - in fact it was further away but there were still birders there looking at it. There probably was a slow trickle of coming and going all day.
The light was waning, so I gave up on staking out Northern Shrike at Great Swamp NWR and decided to try for the Barnacle Goose at Califon in NJ towards sunset. Predictably for my karma on Sunday the bird did not come into roost while I was there - I've seen that bird twice in ~8 visits, but there's always more time to look for it and the Canada X Barnacle hybrid that I'm particularly interested in before it leaves in spring.
My year list sits at a modest 43 species, but it's early days yet.
But first I started out locally, visiting Pole Farm briefly to check on the pale phase Rough-legged Hawk which was hunting over the field off the Federal City Rd entrance, but too distant for photos. Then up to northern NJ and DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands to look for the Snowy Owl that seemed pretty reproducible there. About all it took to find it was to walk up to the other birders that were already there at 10am. Northern Harrier and Rough-legged Hawk were also present in this area. Thank God - at this rate I was going to miss all the Snowys during an invasion year, perhaps the best one in quite some time.
Feeling optimistic I skipped across Staten Island quickly, along the Belt and into Flushing Meadows Corona Park where I started scanning Canada Goose flocks to no avail. And driving the wrong way on roadways that were extremely badly signed. Mea culpa. I checked both north and south of the Long Island Expressway and found a few Canada Goose flocks and no Pink-foot. After a while, I gave up on this first version of the wild goose chase and headed back down the Belt. I decided to stop at Floyd Bennett Field to scope for water birds in Jamaica Bay, coming up with the usual suspects: Common Loon, Red-throated Loon, Horned Grebe, Red-breasted Merganser, Bufflehead and Common Goldeneye. I didn't find a Great Cormorant, however, often quite regular there in winter.
After that, I decided to try for the Western Grebe on the south shore of Staten Island. Thankfully this was a lot more cooperative, being seen well in NY waters from the pier just to the east of Mount Loretto. Also present were several Long-tailed Duck.
Then out of Staten Island by way of the Goethals Bridge and back north to DeKorte Park to see if the Snowy Owl was any closer - in fact it was further away but there were still birders there looking at it. There probably was a slow trickle of coming and going all day.
The light was waning, so I gave up on staking out Northern Shrike at Great Swamp NWR and decided to try for the Barnacle Goose at Califon in NJ towards sunset. Predictably for my karma on Sunday the bird did not come into roost while I was there - I've seen that bird twice in ~8 visits, but there's always more time to look for it and the Canada X Barnacle hybrid that I'm particularly interested in before it leaves in spring.
My year list sits at a modest 43 species, but it's early days yet.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Catskills - Dec 7th - Crossbills
Rolling out of Ewing at 6:30am I was a little late to get to Califon (NJ) for dawn in search of Barnacle Goose. And Lo! it was not there. Fortunately it didn't put me too far off my main destination of the day: the Catskills.
Sullivan Co NY has been very productive the last two winters - I had fun seeing the Pine Grosbeaks at Grahamsville last winter, and this winter a mini-invasion of White-winged Crossbills had also hit the same general area. After some traffic on Rt-17 after a tractor trailer accident I finally got onto the roads climbing into the Catskills around 10am. The Accord isn't exactly optimal for driving on challenging snowy roads, and the antilocks got somewhat of a workout today, but after a little messing around I found myself parked on Brown Settlement Road hearing White-winged Crossbills calling from the spruce grove. A little while later I saw one, then 7. In fact I think I saw the same 7+ several times, despite the fact that there are allegedly close to 100 in this location. Perhaps they were clumping in groups of 7. Never mind - I've only seen White-winged Crossbills once or twice before.
The weather was relatively harsh - a rising strong wind, snow falling about 60% of the time, so there were no photo ops and viewing conditions were sub-optimal to say the least. I didn't find any Pine Siskins and the other notable sightings were two Bald Eagles and a few distant Common Ravens. I doubt the weather bothers the Crossbills - these birds nest during the winter in areas of good food sources.
Leaving the Catskills the truck crash had turned into a hazmat issue, so I lost 45 minutes to slow traffic through that area on "The Quickway" (I love that name). Filling up the tank on Rt-17 in NJ my iPhone proved its worth once again with confirmation of sightings of the Franklin Lakes Ross's Goose (earlier in the day there were negative reports). After winding through the recommended route I immediately saw the Ross's Goose in with the Canada's - no doubt that this flock is wild since it was relatively spooky with passing cars (and even with me opening my passenger side window for photos). Interestingly the only other adult Ross's Goose I'd seen in the east was with a flock of Canadas at Jones Beach, although perhaps this has something to do with the challenge of pulling out a small white goose in another flock of nearly identical white geese - the immature that I saw at Jamaica Bay WR was in a flock of Snow Geese but at least easier to find.
[Edit: a Ross's Goose with a Canada flock was also seen on the Princeton CBC on 12/14 but so far not relocated]
After Franklin Lakes the sun was getting pretty low but I decided to make a sprint for Califon once again, getting there just as the sun set, and after a couple of minutes of searching I did locate the Barnacle Goose at the back of the pond. Seems that sunset is better than sunrise.
I assume this is the same bird that I saw last year, which I took as USA #600. It's interesting to ponder that, given that Barnacles are vagrants from Greenland. This bird must have taken up with this flock of migratory Canadas and stayed with it. A post on JerseyBirds suggested that there was a goose in that flock that showed intermediate character between Barnacle and Canada Goose, which would make sense since hybrids are more likely to occur between an out-of-range Barnacle that finds itself within a Canada flock at breeding time with no other options to pair up with. I didn't see this possible hybrid, but that will lead me to go back and look for it myself.
[Edit: I didn't find either the Barnacle or any potential hybrid on 12/13 at Califon, despite checking multiple times]
Good day, although a tiring one with many road miles.
Sullivan Co NY has been very productive the last two winters - I had fun seeing the Pine Grosbeaks at Grahamsville last winter, and this winter a mini-invasion of White-winged Crossbills had also hit the same general area. After some traffic on Rt-17 after a tractor trailer accident I finally got onto the roads climbing into the Catskills around 10am. The Accord isn't exactly optimal for driving on challenging snowy roads, and the antilocks got somewhat of a workout today, but after a little messing around I found myself parked on Brown Settlement Road hearing White-winged Crossbills calling from the spruce grove. A little while later I saw one, then 7. In fact I think I saw the same 7+ several times, despite the fact that there are allegedly close to 100 in this location. Perhaps they were clumping in groups of 7. Never mind - I've only seen White-winged Crossbills once or twice before.
The weather was relatively harsh - a rising strong wind, snow falling about 60% of the time, so there were no photo ops and viewing conditions were sub-optimal to say the least. I didn't find any Pine Siskins and the other notable sightings were two Bald Eagles and a few distant Common Ravens. I doubt the weather bothers the Crossbills - these birds nest during the winter in areas of good food sources.
Leaving the Catskills the truck crash had turned into a hazmat issue, so I lost 45 minutes to slow traffic through that area on "The Quickway" (I love that name). Filling up the tank on Rt-17 in NJ my iPhone proved its worth once again with confirmation of sightings of the Franklin Lakes Ross's Goose (earlier in the day there were negative reports). After winding through the recommended route I immediately saw the Ross's Goose in with the Canada's - no doubt that this flock is wild since it was relatively spooky with passing cars (and even with me opening my passenger side window for photos). Interestingly the only other adult Ross's Goose I'd seen in the east was with a flock of Canadas at Jones Beach, although perhaps this has something to do with the challenge of pulling out a small white goose in another flock of nearly identical white geese - the immature that I saw at Jamaica Bay WR was in a flock of Snow Geese but at least easier to find.
[Edit: a Ross's Goose with a Canada flock was also seen on the Princeton CBC on 12/14 but so far not relocated]
After Franklin Lakes the sun was getting pretty low but I decided to make a sprint for Califon once again, getting there just as the sun set, and after a couple of minutes of searching I did locate the Barnacle Goose at the back of the pond. Seems that sunset is better than sunrise.
I assume this is the same bird that I saw last year, which I took as USA #600. It's interesting to ponder that, given that Barnacles are vagrants from Greenland. This bird must have taken up with this flock of migratory Canadas and stayed with it. A post on JerseyBirds suggested that there was a goose in that flock that showed intermediate character between Barnacle and Canada Goose, which would make sense since hybrids are more likely to occur between an out-of-range Barnacle that finds itself within a Canada flock at breeding time with no other options to pair up with. I didn't see this possible hybrid, but that will lead me to go back and look for it myself.
[Edit: I didn't find either the Barnacle or any potential hybrid on 12/13 at Califon, despite checking multiple times]
Good day, although a tiring one with many road miles.
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