Labor Day weekend: Central Park and Brigantine

Saturday, at an obnoxious 92 degrees, kept me around the house doing yard work.

On Sunday I trekked into Central Park on a day with at best modest migration prospects.  I was lured in by the reports of Red Crossbills the previous two days - a very rare bird for the park in what might be a major irruption year for them.  The Crossbills bad obviously left, despite some time spent searching Hemlocks for them.  Migration was also less than spectacular, with very low numbers of migrants with the exception of one small active patch near the Gill: this yielded Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Worm-eating, Yellow and Northern Waterthrush.  That was my first Worm-eating Warbler in the park this year - I'd seen or heard others at Sterling Forest and Belleplain SP but as with Cape May Warbler I had struck out on it during spring migration.

On Labor Day itself I went down to Brig again and had a better birding day there than the previous weekend despite some pretty overcast weather.  Three Bobolinks at the start of the one-way section of the wildlife drive.  A Lark Sparrow (my first in NJ and fairly rare in the East) made itself obvious by lurking around the drive itself where the bulky side and white-tipped tail feathers drew my attention.  Several other birders drove right past it and flushed it from the driveway, so it wasn't apparently obvious to everyone.  Double-crested Cormorant numbers were quite high - already on the move with some flocks in the air, there were also a lot of them staging in the area and big flocks were feeding on fish schools along with similarly high numbers of Forster's Terns.  Since it was windy I did unusually poorly with passerines, i.e. no Seaside Sparrows, and the two Ammodramus sparrows that I did see where a nice bonus - Saltmarsh (Sharp-tailed) Sparrows.  While not the first time I've seen them there, they are not an every-trip bird.  Shorebirds were in modest numbers with the typical selection augmented by Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot (one adult, one juvenile) and three Pectoral Sandpipers.  There were also some interesting terns - a flock on a sandbar with shorebirds had many Royals and a few Caspians.  Later on I saw juvenile Caspians still begging from their parents.  And best of all a juvenile Gull-billed Tern was still being fed by parents that had already started their pre-basic molt and losing their black caps.  A Wild Turkey in the forested area capped off the trip and I did fairly well at avoiding the worst of the Labor Day traffic on the way back home.

Brigantine NWR, August 28th

Making a little of a lethargic start I opted to go check out shorebirds at Brigantine NWR, with high tide expected around the middle of the day. There was a large flock of Tree Swallows at the Gull Pond tower turn-around but the tower was under construction.

Recent rain seem to be reflected in the pools being relatively high on water, although the north-western pool looked like it had been drained down to provide more shorebird habitat. I came away with not too much diversity, at least in part because I went around prior to high tide and because the driest pool put the shorebirds deep into the heat haze. Best shorebirds were a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers, missing the Buff-breasted and Avocets seen later in the morning. Spotted Sandpiper, both Yellowlegs, Willet, Semipalmated Sandpiper (abundant), Least Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plover and Ruddy Turnstone rounded out the total. Ospreys and two Peregrines were the raptors seen. At the "tern sluice" there were no Common Terns but a nice extra were two juvenile Least Terns and a molting adult - a species I see infrequently there. Other terns included abundant Forster's, a few Caspians, and Black Skimmer. Two Blue Grosbeaks at the dogleg and a fast moving Ruby-throated Hummingbird were two other notables.

Fall migration begins (July 3rd)

Two successive weekend visits to Brigantine NWR turned up mostly the same species both times with minor variations and one embellishment: two small flocks of shorebirds on July 3rd. Forster's Terns were numerous, as were greenheads. On 6/28 two Common Terns were seen at the south-eastern sluice where I often observe them, with one Common Tern particularly cooperative for photos and video. Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows were also there, as were two or three pairs of territorial Willets apparently fighting over one small grassy island.

On 7/3 the Common Terns were absent at low tide. Further around there were Short-billed Dowitchers, peep sp (probably Least), a Caspian Tern and a Bald Eagle that flushed the lot of them. The shorebird flocks were the first evidence that fall migration - at least for shorebirds - was starting, although I had started to see small icterid flocks accumulating for their early fall migration and Bobolinks were reported at Cape May on 7/8, presumably also southbound.

Birds are still breeding, however, with juvenile-sounding noises coming from Chipping Sparrow and Northern Cardinal nests in my yard, and a House Wren apparently nesting there (second brood ?).

Cumulative species list from 6/28 and 7/3 Brigantine visits:
American Black Duck
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Glossy Ibis
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Peregrine Falcon
American Oystercatcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Least Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Gull-billed Tern
Caspian Tern
Common Tern
Forster's Tern
Black Skimmer
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Purple Martin
Tree Swallow
Marsh Wren
Common Yellowthroat
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow
Seaside Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
American Goldfinch