And with patience, a Woodcock or two

Returning to Kingston the following night (March 12th) after confirming the location with a local birder, I exhibited more patience and was rewarded by a few American Woodcock peenting and one or two singing. In fact I managed to lock on one twittering as it circled upwards and was able to watch the entire display in the gathering gloom. It was relatively cold, which might suggest that there could be even more on a balmier evening. Peenting started shortly after 7pm.

Update: on March 17th I returned to this place, saw one Woodcock and heard another one. The Woodcock I saw displayed right over my head and did a close fly-by on descent before landing in an open patch and started to peent. On another display flight I saw it land in a different open patch and watched it while it "broadcast" the peent by pointing in a different direction after each call - there's obviously quite a different volume depending on which way the bird faced. There was also a little soft "hic" call once or twice before each peent and a low soft growl call when I saw it flying around at low altitude - this might have been the result of the one bird reacting to another one peenting.

Great Horned Owl

While unsuccessfully searching for American Woodcock in Kingston, I heard two Great Horned Owls hooting at each other over the corner of the area I was searching. As this was persistent, I was able to slowly and quietly approach the area and finally was rewarded by the sight of one of the Great Horned hooting away. Interesting how it lowered its posture to a more horizontal position while hooting. The second owl was much further away.

In the extensive scrubby area I picked up a Field Sparrow (first of year for me), but I didn't so much as hear a Woodcock.

American Woodcock

Tuesday night (March 10th) I heard two American Woodcocks at the old apt complex of Quakerbridge Rd but they were not very vocal, I didn't see either of them, and the road noise was significant. They were in the adjacent field and not in the wet area near the parking lot that they had also been in for the two previous years - I used to be able to hear them from my apartment.

March 7th: Brigantine to Belmar

Starting off at Brigantine NWR shortly after sunrise, I spent the first few hours taking pictures of the accommodating White-winged Crossbills that were feeding in a low (Black? Japanese) Pine in the parking lot area. Conditions were balmy and emphasized by early spring birds like Killdeer, Greater Yellowlegs, Wood Duck and Hermit Thrush at flew over or hopped around the general area. Mixed blackbird flocks flew over, with at least some birds sounding like Brown-headed Cowbirds.

Then down to the impoundments were there were thousands of waterfowl: Brant and Snow Geese, dabbling ducks dominated by Northern Pintail and American Black Duck, thousands of Greater and Lesser Scaup with Redhead and Canvasback in the impoundments. All three merganser sp. were to be found. The most interesting find were two Short-eared Owls that were hunting near the south-west corner of the impoundments in broad daylight.

After Brigantine I went north to Barnegat Inlet which was swarming with humanity in this warm day. That and a sore left knee reduced my desire to walk out on the jetty too far. Common Loons were numerous, some in near breeding plumage, as were Long-tailed Duck. Other ducks included Harlequins, Black Scoter and Red-breasted Merganser. There were Red-throated Loon and Red-necked Grebe mixed in with the Common Loons, and Northern Gannet were working the coast offshore.

A brief visit to Wells Mills County Park showed that the feeders were quiet with no Siskins.

Then on the way north I visited Wreck Pond in Spring Lake, Lake Como and Silver Lake in Belmar. At Wreck Pond the most unusual bird was an American Bittern hunting at the edge of the phragmites. At Lake Como a small toy watercraft had limited the number of birds but one Redhead was in the small Canvasback/Lesser Scaup flock. At Silver Lake there was no Eurasian Wigeon but a few Americans and a large number of Brant.

White-winged Crossbill in the garden !

This morning (March 3rd) I was taking the car out of the garage before filling the feeders and stopped to listen to the singing Pine Siskins that have been visiting the thistle over the last few weeks. I heard something that sounded atypical, and yet reminiscent of.... White-winged Crossbills visiting the three Spruce at the top of my driveway !

I almost fell over from shock. The four crossbills relocated to a deciduous tree nearby and waiting cooperatively for me to look at two males and two females (one greener than the other) before moving on.

That's quite the yard bird. Red-winged Blackbird made the yard list the previous day, part of a large blackbird flock that touched down for a little while in the Red Oak.

North shore again, March 1st

Despite still recovering from an epic bout of food poisoning, I spent a little time at the North Shore on Sunday ahead of the cold snap. At Wreck Pond I found a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls in with the gull flock. At Silver Lake in Belmar I finally found the Eurasian Wigeon mixed in with the American Wigeon and Brant flock there. Lake Como had some diving ducks but was mostly closed for a parade, so I had no luck searching for Redhead.

Barnacle Goose, Barrow's Goldeneye - NYC and NJ

I went specifically looking for two species of waterfowl over the weekend of the 21st/22nd Feb - Barrow's Goldeneye in NYC and Barnacle Goose in NJ.

On Saturday, fighting with three traffic slowdowns and my own tardiness, I did a quick sprint to Warinanco Park in Linden for Barnacle Goose, failed to find it, but somehow did manage to get to Jamaica Bay WR in Brooklyn/Queens a little before sundown. There the male Barrow's Goldeneye was amongst a decent-sized flock of Common Goldeneye on the West Pond around 5pm. This was perhaps the largest flock of Goldeneye I recall seeing on the West Pond. Other ducks were in less impressive numbers, with relatively few (Greater) Scaup, one Canvasback and relatively few dabbling ducks. This was my first Barrow's Goldeneye in NYC, the life bird was the Ransom Beach/Long Island one, and I'd seen other ones at Sandy Hook (NJ) and in Colorado. Other interesting birds at Jamaica Bay included a hardy Great Egret but there wasn't much time to search for more given impending sunset.

Despite much uglier weather on Sunday I did a more diligent search of Warinanco Park in the midst of intermittent drizzle and heavy overcast, and it wasn't all that hard to find the Barnacle Goose there in a large flock of Canadas. The Barnacle Goose had intact halluxes, apparently intact primaries, and was neither more tame nor more wild than the accompanying wild Canada Geese - so at first blush this seems like a legit bird. It was being harassed a little by the Canadas, but otherwise was pretty comfortable in the flock.

NJ Coast

Starting not as early as I should have done, I braved moderately brisk conditions to wander down the breakwater at Barnegat Inlet. While Harlequin Ducks were present, shorebirds were notable by their absence - no Turnstones or Purple Sandpipers and a grand total of one Black-bellied Plover, two Sanderlings and a Dunlin. In the inlet itself, a Red-necked Grebe continued there after several days, one male Black Scoter, an immature male Surf Scoter and the usual suspects with several Long-tailed Ducks, both loons, and a few Red-breasted Mergansers. Over the other side of the inlet a small group of Common Eider were seen at a distance, and there were Great Cormorant on the end of the far jetty. Luckily I bumped into my friend Brian at the end of the jetty, so we hung out for a while before retreating to the parking lot.

After Barnegat I went south to Brigantine NWR which held all the usual suspects: Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Mallard, American Black Duck, Green-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Tundra Swan, Brant and Snow Geese, Northern Harrier. A nice find was a small flock of American Pipits.

North again from Brigantine I followed Brian's advice and stopped at Wells Mills County Park to view the feeders at the Nature Center, where the Pine Siskins were very tame but not very photographable.

Then I did a north coast pond tour, starting in Point Pleasant which didn't have much on the ponds there. Lake Como, Silver Lake (no Eurasian Wigeon) and Sylvan Lake were a little better, and I finally wound up at Lake Takanassee where the Common (Eurasian) Teal wasn't particularly hard to find, but so far not considered a separate species in the USA. And then I went back down to Silver Lake (Belmar) for one last look for the Eurasian Wigeon. Overall there was a decent collection of ducks: Snow Goose, Hooded and Red-breasted Merganser, Ring-necked Duck, Lesser Scaup, Canvasback, Black Duck, American Wigeon, Gadwall etc as well as Black-crowned Night-Heron and Great Blue Heron.

Raptors, raptors everywhere

Saturday was a bad day for prey in Lawrenceville. Despite the overcast I did a last minute wander to Pole Farm. At 4:30pm a Peregrine with prey flew up to the top of a pole along Federal City Rd near the small shopping center. At Pole Farm the Short-eared Owls were already up in the air at 4:30 with dark overcast conditions with little wind. At least four Northern Harriers were around, one or two Red-tailed Hawks) and finally on exiting Pole Farm I saw a Merlin perched in a tree near the entrance.

(I also saw Red-shouldered Hawk there earlier in the week).