Sunday 5/8

This was a slower day, both measured in terms of the numbers of warblers but also the extent to which they quieted down by late morning. I did find a Cape May Warbler at Strawberry Fields, singing, but missed the Blue Grosbeak (a lingerer, presumably) and Bay-breasted Warbler. Cape May has been moderately numerous again this spring. Birds like Blackpoll Warbler and Black-throated Green Warbler were notably absent today.

By late morning I decided to pack it in and get some brunch at one of my old UES haunts. I had driven into the city and had parked at 79th/Madison.

After brunch I decided to hit a couple of birding spots and my preferred nursery before getting home. First stop was DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands Lyndhurst. DeKorte has great potential as a spring shorebirding spot if only they would draw down the water a little and expose a little more mud, even in one small section. In the event I saw Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Sandpiper (one quite advanced, very rufous, with a prominent white eye ring), and one Spotted Sandpiper. Also present were Gadwall, American Black Duck, Mallard (with ducklings), Tree/Barn/Bank Swallows. Passerine migration was also in evidence, with the trees and pond edge containing Yellow-rumped Warblers, Yellow Warbler and Common Yellowthroat.

After a visit to Belle Mead C0-op for grass seed, I went down to nearby Griggstown Preserve (Franklin Twp, NJ) to check for Bobolinks. Someone had reported quite a few near the parking lot. I found one, a male that still had a rather subdued plumage - either in mid-molt or a young bird. As often happens here, the Bobolinks drop in but don't seem to stick for very long. Also there was Orchard Oriole, Tree Swallow, Warbling Vireo and many Red-winged Blackbirds.

Barnegat to Shawangunk - early signs of spring

A refurbished car (new tires, replaced wheel bearing) led me to do an epic road trip from the NJ shore to the Shawangunks on Saturday.

At Barnegat Inlet at 0700 the surf was up, driven by high tide and brisk northern winds, so few ducks were along the north-facing side of the breakwater. Surf Scoter, Black Scoter and Common Eider were along the mouth of the inlet. Long-tailed Ducks were everywhere, vocal and starting to molt. Common and Red-throated Loons were scare - the Common Loons themselves starting to molt into breeding plumage. A few shorebirds were present - Black-bellied Plover, Dunlin and Ruddy Turnstone - but no Purple Sandpipers. Not a bad start but the weather reduced the opportunities.

Barnegat List:
Common Loon
Red-throated Loon
Brant
Common Eider
Surf Scoter
Long-tailed Duck
Red-breasted Merganser
Great Cormorant
Black-bellied Plover
American Oystercatcher
Ruddy Turnstone
Dunlin
Horned Lark
Savannah Sparrow
Boat-tailed Grackle

After that I went north and stopped at Belmar and Spring Lake for Glaucous Gull and Pacific Loon and didn't find either. Gull #s were low, and the only loons were very obviously Commons.

Then north-west to DeKorte Park in the Meadowlands where I failed once more to find Northern Shrike but did find three Fox Sparrows and a couple of Brown-headed Cowbirds. A Red-winged Blackbird was singing.

Then north-west some more via a somewhat non-optimal route to Wallkill NWR, or more specifically the Oil City Road parking lot on the NY side of the NWR. Here Crows and Turkey Vultures were common (Canada Geese and American Crow being the most common bird over that whole area). I did find two pale and one dark morph Rough-legged Hawk but they were well to the north of Oil City Rd and buried in the heat haze - it was a fairly warm day - for unsatisfying looks. Also of interest was a kettle of Black Vultures headed north.

Finally, the last 45 minute sprint of the day got me from Wallkill NWR to Shawangunk NWR for 5pm. Two Short-eared Owls were already up and perched in the sun, but not all that active apart from periodic harassment of the Northern Harriers (about 6 of them). No Rough-legged Hawks but a local birder told me they were there early in the day and often move off if the human activity is too much. I heard a Common Raven croak but did not see it. I also heard a Barred Owl sound off a couple of times but didn't see that either. After sunset, and about 6pm as it was starting to get pretty dark, I counted 4 Short-eared Owls over the center of the grassy areas. The previous night it was apparently 5. On the walk back to the car I heard the peenting of an American Woodcock and heard it twitter during its song flight.

Then all that was needed was a 2:15 drive home in the dark......

Update: suspicion that the Black Vultures I saw on Sat were migrating was bolstered by the observation of migrating Turkey Vultures over Manhattan on the subsequent Monday. Spring has sprung for the Vultures too.

DeKorte Park, Sept 26th

After Central Park, DeKorte park was rather more active at least in the waterfowl and shorebird sense. Several Lesser Yellowlegs were still around, there was a large concentration of herons in the drying pools, but the best birds were 2-3 Soras, one of which was rather tame.



Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Gadwall
American Black Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Pintail
Sora
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Long-billed Dowitcher

Northern Wheatear, DeKorte Park, Lyndhurst NJ

Northern Wheatear is moderately common in Britain so I've seen a bunch of them, but only one previously in the US - a quick look at the often-elusive Smith Point Park bird on 9/22/01. So even though I had seen one in GB on 9/11 I went looking for the DeKorte Park bird, finding it relatively quickly and getting good looks at what appears on the face of it to be a first fall immature of the Greenland ssp. This is the first time I've birded the impoundments at DeKorte and there were a good number of shorebirds present. Predominantly Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs there were also Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Pectoral and Stilt Sandpipers, Semipalmated and a single juvenile American Golden Plover. Not bad for a morning, and a Northern Harrier was over the phragmites on the way out.

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.