Goose Weekend Part 1 - Ross's

Since the day started off cloudy, I experienced a lack of desire to run out of the door and go birding - this being a usual reaction to returning from birding trips. However the cloud started to clear towards 8am so I headed towards the coast and Tom's River. By 0830 I found myself at Shelter Cove Park in Tom's River, and I hadn't even turned into the parking lot before I found the conspicuous pair of Ross's Geese amongst the larger flock of Canada's on the soccer field.

These birds were particularly tame, and the park not at all busy, but they did spook when a Bald Eagle flew by. I found the Ross's again off the beach area at the other end of the park after the flock fragmented.


I wasn't highly motivated but still made one more stop: Barnegat Inlet a little to the south. Here it was mid morning and I didn't even walk out on the jetty. Nevertheless in windy and sunny conditions I did track down: Common and Red-throated Loons, Long-tailed Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, Harlequin Duck, Common Eider. The cormorants at the end of the jetty are still probably Great rather than Double-crested, but at that range I couldn't be sure. All that without leaving the concrete walkway - however the activity in the inlet was low and I didn't feel like rock hopping all the way out.

On the way back I went via Pemberton (generally cheap gas), turned at Columbus to avoid Bordentown, and on a whim decided to check out the Delaware River at Florence. The Delaware itself was swollen and brown with a lot of tree debris floating down stream. Trees south of the riverside park had suffered and fallen, and there was a large tree trunk pulled up on the boat ramp - reflections of recent difficult weather. The river itself was quiet - the gulls that were there were all Ring-billed and there wasn't much else hanging around.

It is an ex-Murre, it has ceased to be

(If you're not familiar with Monty Python's Parrot Sketch .....)

The major reason for the trip onto Long Island on Saturday morning was to see the Thick-billed Murre at Hempstead Lake State Park. I knew it was sick, so there was a risk, nevertheless I wasn't entirely happy that I was told the bird had died before I even got the spotting 'scope out of the car.

C'est la vie.

Instead I went to Massapequa Preserve, further to the east. At the pond near the Pittsburgh Ave entrance there were a good number of waterfowl, especially Green-winged Teal. Also present were Gadwall, Mallard, American Wigeon, Mute Swan and the inevitable Canada Goose. The best birds were five Long-billed Dowitchers and a small flock of fly-over probable Pine Siskin (call and silhouette fit, but I like to see more on a year bird). Black-capped Chickadee and Winter Wren were also nice firsts for the year - I had heard but not seen another Winter Wren in Princeton in the previous week.

Then on to Jones Beach SP where I started at the West End at the Coastguard Station which was very quiet (one Long-tailed Duck at the dock). More interesting was a duck hunting boat (and "hunter" both in full camo) with a 500mm lens pursuing pictures of ducks in the inlet and bay. I mean pursuing literally, and I think he was flushing more birds than he was getting pictures of. West End 2 was similarly dead with the first of many Song Sparrows along the roadside, but West End 1 (Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center) was more productive. There was one flighty flock of 50-60 Snow Buntings milling around, and on the boardwalk there were Yellow-rumped Warbler, a few more Song Sparrows, many Savannah Sparrows including a couple of the "Ipswich" subspecies, Northern Harrier and Horned Lark. I didn't manage to pick out any Lapland Longspurs but there were many passerines in this section. There was also a single immature Snow Goose in with the Canada Geese feeding in the median strip outside West End 1.

Next I went to West End 6, where I scanned the ocean looking for ducks and Gannets. No Gannets but quite a few Long-tailed Ducks, some Surf Scoter, two Black Scoter and one fly-by Greater Scaup showing the full extent of the wing bar rather nicely. Both loons, Horned Grebe and a mere handful of Sanderlings were also present.

Finally, and to complete the rare bird strike-out sweep for the day, I went to Camman's Pond in Merrick where the Ross's Goose was nowhere to be seen but there were a decent number of dabbling ducks on the pond including Northern Shoveler, new for the day/year.

Aggregate list:

Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Horned Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Snow Goose
Canada Goose
Brant
Mute Swan
Gadwall
American Wigeon
American Black Duck
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Long-tailed Duck
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Sanderling
Bonaparte's Gull
Horned Lark
Winter Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Snow Bunting
House Finch
probable Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch

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.