Sandy Hook

While waiting for real migration to arrive, I thought I'd try and pick off some late winter or very early spring species at Sandy Hook. I managed to find the only part of NJ that wasn't sunny and in the 60's this past Sunday - the wall of fog was literally staged at the Keyport bridge at the Sandy Hook ramp, so it was a cool 50's with limited visibility.

Chokeberry Lot: Long-tailed Duck, American Oystercatcher (First-of-year for me), Red-throated Loon and a single Surf Scoter (FOY). Thankfully an easy to ID male under those viewing conditions. Visibility into the ocean was very limited so I was only able to see ducks that were already closer to shore - a scope wasn't even that useful here since the visibility cut off before the birds got too small to ID via binoculars.

Sadly there was also a sick/injured Long-tailed Duck on the beach - it's too late in the year for a hunting injury but the bird could not fly, and if it had injured a wing it could not dive either. I told the Rangers about this and they seemed motivated to go take a look. These things happen, and Long-tailed Duck is a common species, but it's still a distressing thing to witness.

Visitor Center lot: Long-tailed Duck and some fly-by Red-breasted Mergansers. I didn't scan the bay side very much since it was contra light in this afternoon visit but I also saw Red-breasted Mergansers there.

North Beach: more American Oystercatcher pairs; more Long-tailed Ducks; two more Red-throated Loons; two more Surf Scoters; one Piping Plover (FOY).

Visitor Center Lot revisit: small group of Northern Gannets (adult) and three White-winged Scoters (FOY).

Brant were still in evidence but there were few to no American Black Ducks which have probably decamped for the saltmarshes now that it approaches breeding season. But the trip was good for Scoters - I have particular problem finding White-winged Scoters now that I don't visit Montauk Point (where you could find several thousand of each of the three species) and I hadn't seen Surf Scoter this year either. My alternate favorite location - Barnegat Inlet - isn't reliable for scoter species early in the year, although back in November I had all three species in the big diving duck flock.

North Shore Crossbills

Even though I eschewed a pelagic trip in 10-20 degree weather I did manage to motivate myself to get out in relatively sunny but frigid conditions to go find the crossbills reported in Seven President's Park in Long Branch. Easy enough task, since birders had already found them. There were three White-winged Crossbills and two Red Crossbills but they were grouped by species at opposite ends of the park. Both spent some time on the ground either eating snow or foraging amongst the fallen pine cones (just the White-winged) in addition to spending time in the pines that in the park. I haven't seen either in NJ that frequently, so this was a nice way to get myself frozen of a morning (it was breezy in the 20's).

While thawing from that experience I went down to the Manasquan River inlet on the Point Pleasant side - I'd been told that Shark River inlet was very quiet, and a very brief stop at the Roosevelt Ave sea overlook in Deal yielded only a few loons, Great Cormorant and Bufflehead. Point Pleasant was similarly quiet - Common and a few probable Red-throated Loons, a Horned Grebe, a mixed flock of Dunlin and Purple Sandpipers and a single male White-winged Scoter. Since Scoters are gregarious in NJ in winter I wondered if this was a sick/injured bird. Either way there was so little visible on the water within identifiable range that I got out of there before I started to even get really cold.

March 14th and 15th

Spring migration was in evidence courtesy of probably my least favorite bird - the Brown-headed Cowbird. On Saturday I had three fly over me at Barnegat Inlet, two males singing at Wells Mills County Park; on Sunday there were both males and females in the blackbird flock at Plainsboro Preserve.

At Barnegat on Saturday the best birds were two Red-necked Grebes and two Great Cormorants, with a mixed Surf and Black Scoter flock in the inlet and the usual suspects including large numbers of Long-tailed Ducks and my first Ruddy Turnstones of the year. I also did my best to trash my left knee while rock-hopping along the jetty with the camera gear. In the bay, viewed from local streets in Surf City, there were additionally American Oystercatcher (newly arrived in numbers throughout the region), three White-winged Scoter, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye and Horned Grebe.

At Wells Mills County Park the feeder birds were present including a still healthy number of Pine Siskins.

And then because a little sun was peeking through the clouds I went to Wreck Pond in Spring Lake (nothing of interest), Lake Como (Redhead, Canvasback, Ring-necked Duck, Lesser Scaup), and Silver Lake in Belmar (Eurasian Wigeon, American Wigeon, Am. Black Duck, Ruddy Duck and a lot of Brant).

On Sunday, nursing the damaged knee, I limited myself to three local spots: Plainsboro Preserve (American Tree Sparrow, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Brown-headed Cowbird, but no Tree Swallows), Griggstown Native Grassland Preserve (quiet, Eastern Bluebird), Negri-Nepote Grasslands (Northern Pintail, Song Sparrow).

Update 3/21: making much the same trip the following weekend I finally saw a few Purple Sandpipers at Barnegat, the "paired" Red-necked Grebes were still there, but there were no other surprises. Nine White-winged Crossbills were at Brigantine NWR along with the first Osprey of the season for me and a Northern Bobwhite in the grassland area - apparently a rare bird at Brigantine with only a few calling males left. The bird I saw was probably a female.