Better luck with Geese, Jan 26th

Although my main preoccupation was shoveling a little snow on Saturday morning, the report of two Barnacle Geese at Assunpink WMA had me head out there for about 10:30am - definitely a slacker start to the day.  The lake had been reduced to the size of a pond by the recent cold snap, with waterfowl clustered in and around it, and the two Barnacle Geese were sitting at the right hand side of the pond.  From time to time they would stand up and be seen well.  Bobbing around in the melee of mostly-Canadas were several Mute Swans, American Black Duck, Hooded Merganser, Ruddy Duck, Ring-necked Duck and probably several other waterfowl that weren't easily picked out at a distance with a lot of geese in the way.  These Barnacles were certainly the duo that I had missed the previous week.

I could have pursued the local (and elusive) Northern Shrike that's been spending the winter at Assunpink but the snowy track and the hunters dampened enthusiasm for that, and instead I went out to  Tom's River to look for the Pink-footed Goose.  This is almost certainly the other goose that I missed last weekend, with it apparently getting bored of the Hightstown area and heading south-east.   It was, as reported, on a golf course adjacent to a busy road (corner of Bey Lea and Old Freehold Road, Tom's River) so not a peaceful wilderness viewing experience, but with the scope I was able to get good looks at the Pink-footed Goose in a large flock of Canadas.

As previously, no sign of Cacklings in either Canada flock.

I've seen Pink-footed Geese in three of the last six years, and Barnacle Goose four of the last six.  While still rarities they've dropped from being the really major rarities to just "good birds", presumably courtesy of population increases in Greenland (quite a few Greenland-originated Canada's winter in the North East).

While on the coast I wanted to make a little foray to Manasquan Inlet (Point Pleasant Beach) to look for sea ducks.  My first attempt, via Mantoloking, was blocked since only resident traffic was allowed northbound along the barrier island (plenty of Hurricane Sandy damage still visible in this location).  With some back-tracking I finally got to Point Pleasant beach which had lost its ocean-side boardwalk along the beach but was not entirely trashed.  From the (intact) breakwater along the inlet there was a very modest selection of ocean birds - most of them Common Loons which were putting in a pretty strong showing.  Otherwise: one Red-throated Loon; Greater and Lesser Scaup (the Lessers likely displaced from the frozen ponds); Long-tailed Duck; Bufflehead; Red-breasted Merganser; Brant.  Not a great variety, or numbers, but I haven't yet made my late winter trip to Barnegat Inlet which often produces better results - but not a place I visit on frigid days with the odds of ice after recent snowfall.

Northern Lapwings (again) but no exotic geese, Jan 20th

Although the Montauk pair of Lapwings I saw back in November have long since vanished, the invasion of them has apparently been so extensive that three (yes, three) were found near New Egypt in January.  That's close enough to my home base in central NJ to constitute a must-see.  So on the Saturday after my TX trip I went out to the grassy farm field to witness the somewhat surreal scene of three Northern Lapwings together, sitting in a cow pasture.  To add to the exotic feel a couple of Sandhill Cranes flew in - apparently there had been a persistent few Sandhills in this general area for many years but I've been mostly aware of the ones up in Somerset Co.  The Lapwings were at this location through at least Jan 26th.  God only knows how many of these there are littered around the north-east.

After that I struck out on the other targets for the day - both Barnacle and Pink-footed Geese that had been reported fairly regularly from the area of Assunpink Lake WMA and Etra Lake (Hightstown) and fields nearby while I was away in TX, but became elusive around the time I got back from that trip.  Despite looking at likely farm fields around Etra Lake and Hightstown I couldn't even find a big flock of Canada's.  Nor was  I successful with Cackling in the flock that remained at Lake Etra.

TX Trip January

In a triumph of lack of imagination I went on Yet Another Texas Trip January 11-17th.  This year was marked by worse-than-average weather and worse-than-average species diversity but as is often the nature of Texas trips there was one surprise: Flammulated Owl (USA #677) - not an obvious target bird for sea level in January; White-collared Seedeater - not a lifer but oft-missed on these TX trips and a perennial on by "better view desired" list.  The latter was a cooperative female.

Trip report here FWIW.

Year Listing - Long Island and PA

The year list attracts my attention in January, so I did some roaming around to find some of the more difficult winter birds, to limited success: no Tufted Duck on Long Island; no Barnacle Goose on Long Island - I picked the wrong Barnacle to chase since the Van Cortlandt Park bird is still there.

Nevertheless, on Jan 5th:

Huntington Harbor viewed from Halesite Park gave a nice mix of winter water birds but without the Tufted Duck I desired: Common and Red-throated Loons; American Black Duck; American Wigeon; Gadwall; Greater Scaup; Bufflehead; Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers; Mute Swan; Brant.  One of the Red-throated Loons was especially dark (an immature), so dark that it almost had a chin strap.

I got to Belmont Lake State Park after the Barnacle Goose had flown out, but there were still: Common Merganser; Ring-necked Duck; Northern Flicker; Brown Creeper; Golden-crowned Kinglets.

A stop at Jones Beach State Park at Lot 6 revealed that the boardwalk had been damaged and the main building was closed.  Not a great deal visible over the ocean but a few distant Scoter sp, Nothern Gannet, Common Loon, Long-tailed Ducks and an alcid sp.  The alcid was almost certainly Razorbill but the surf was up and alcids stay down a while while feeding thus making viewing extremely difficult.  Three fly-by Sanderlings made for half the shorebird species for the day.

On to the Coast Guard station where Long-tailed Duck, Red-breasted Merganser and Brant were in the dock area (here too the dock was ripped up due to Hurricane Sandy), American Oystercatcher and Bonaparte's Gull in the bay, and both species of Loons were numerous here taking advantage of calmer waters than the ocean.  Nothering much going on in West End 2 but at the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center I had a fly-by Great Blue Heron (immature, hopefully headed south), three Horned Larks and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  Notable by their absence were any type of raptor at Jones Beach - normally a reliable place for them but Sandy may well have killed off the small mammal populations.

Then I started to head back to NJ, first stopping at Tottenville Train Station where American Wigeon, the expected male Eurasian Wigeon and an adult Great Cormorant were easily found.  Back in NJ at Edison Boat Launch there was nothing beyond common gulls and Mallards but one Red-tailed Hawk was hovering in ways that suggested Rough-legged (alas, no, but the land-fills around that part of Edison/New Brunswick have attracted white-winged gulls and Rough-legged recently).

Finally, with an idea of adding more interesting gulls to the day's list I made my last stop at Falls Twp Community Park in PA where I found 3 Lesser-black-backed Gulls and one second winter Iceland Gull, although I had to wait for the latter and it was on the darker end of the Kumlein's Iceland scale with some duskiness in the primaries.  Not a viable Thayer's however.

On January 7th I added a Red-breasted Nuthatch at my back yard feeders and Bald Eagle at Mercer County Park lake.

All this rummaging around has propelled me to 62 for my year list, a number that is going to get larger once I make my annual TX trip at the end of the week.

Wild Goose chases, either side of Xmas

A Pink-footed Goose at Assiscong Marsh found by Frank Sencher (possibly the Cushetunk Lake individual from earlier in Dec) had me braving the potential for bad mall traffic on the 24th - but I got through Flemington quite quickly and after 15 minutes of sorting through an infinite number of Canadas.  The early start was just as well - I saw the Pink-footed Goose at 7:20am, about 10 minutes before it decided to fly out of the marsh to go feed (it was re-found in a park nearby later on).  Good diagnostic looks, but I was hoping for pictures as well.  At least I managed to put the other birder present on the goose before it took off.  I've now seen Pink-footed in NY, NJ and PA.  Other waterfowl present included: American Black Duck, Mallard, Gadwall and Green-winged Teal.  A brief look around local roads didn't show any goose flocks but I didn't realize until later that there was a nearby park that I should have checked too.


On the 27th a report of a Barnacle Goose came up on JerseyBirds at Mercer Corporate Park found by Mary DeLia - this is just inside Mercer County near Allentown and within striking distance of where I was.  (This spot is also the Northern Lapwing location from this fall).  I'd seen Barnacle in NJ before (Califon) and Barnacle this year (NYC/Bronx) but the odds of getting another Barnacle Goose in Mercer Co seemed remote so I headed out to see it.  It had moved on to an adjacent field making for more obscured viewing but after a little walk up the hard shoulder I picked it out at the back of the Canada flock.  On the recent CBC there had been two Barnacles at Plainsboro Preserve and one at Lake Etra, so there are multiples here or hereabouts.

Both these birds are presumed Greenland-originated (although with Barnacle it's difficult to be certain), and increased numbers of both in the north-east are related to melting of the Greenland ice sheet due to global warming.  Nevertheless they remain some of the more prized winter geese by their scarcity.

Barnegat Inlet, Dec 23rd

The lure of alcids brought me to the NJ coast just before Xmas, but I was to be thwarted on the quest for either Razorbills or Dovekie.  In fact Barnegat Inlet was pretty quiet initially.  Long-tailed Ducks had put in an appearance in numbers compared to my last visit, Common Loons were around in decent numbers but everything else was pretty slow.  Minor novelties were a Canada Goose flock, probably bouncing down the coast as the weather hardens, and Hooded Mergansers flying up the inlet into the bay.  One female Black Scoter was at the bay end of the inlet and a female or subadult male Surf Scoter was along the rocks at once point.  Notable by their absence were any Great Cormorants (regular here in winter).


Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Northern Gannet
Double-crested Cormorant
Common Eider
Harlequin Duck
Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Long-tailed Duck
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Turnstone
Purple Sandpiper
Dunlin
Bonaparte's Gull
Yellow-rumped Warbler

Dec 15th: White-winged Crossbill and CPK #200 (actually 204)

A brief visit to Central Park on the morning of Dec 15th was entirely mercenary with one species in mind: White-winged Crossbill.  Having dipped on Evening Grosbeak and Red Crossbill previously I was immensely relieved to find three female White-winged Crossbills in Mugger's Woods (charming name, historically accurate) feeding on sweet-gum seeds.  While Evening Grosbeaks were seen earlier that day they continued to evade me.  A Barred Owl was still present, although the vanishing leaves had led it to move roosts to an evergreen over its previous deciduous.

Other birds were an ongoing swarm of Tufted Titmice at the Ramble feeders, a Brown Creeper, a flock of Cedar Waxwings at Strawberry Fields feeding on holly, and a late Baltimore Oriole.  Judging from tail feather shape this oriole was a first winter bird.  Hopefully it heads south quickly because despite a fairly mild start to the winter I cannot imagine it's going to be as mild as last winter.

On Saturday I was elated about the Crossbills at least in part because I thought they were Central Park bird #200.  In fact I'd seriously undercounted and they were #204:

• 204: White-winged Crossbill
• 203: Brant (Nov 17th 2012)
• 202: Barred Owl (Nov 17th 2012)
• 201: Grasshopper Sparrow (May 4th 2012)
• 200: Acadian Flycatcher (May 3rd 2011)

Given that #198 and 199 were Western Tanager Dickcissel (2008) and Varied Thrush (2010) it's clear that 2012 was a far better-than-average year for difficult park species and equally clear that I'm getting laissez-faire with my editing of some of my location species lists - Central Park is actually one of the ones I pay attention to, allegedly.

I'm still missing Red Crossbill and Evening Grosbeak in what is an invasion year for both, however.

Psychotic chasing: Cape Cod

While I'm not an obsessive chaser, the lists that I take seriously are my Life List, Year List and Central Park List.  I'm willing to travel a little distance to plug holes in my Life List, especially now that I'm at 675 and new birds are difficult to find to advance the goal of reaching 700.

So it didn't escape my notice that a Little Egret had been found the previous weekend on Cape Cod.  Although New England is a lot more compact than, say, the American west, it's still 325 miles of driving one way to get from central NJ to Hyannis.  That's a pretty long round trip and as I'm increasingly older also toward the upper limit of what I'm tempted to do in one day.

Nevertheless, Little Egret is something I've tried for and struck out on in the past, and it would make a nice "pairing" with the Western Reef-Heron in Brooklyn (July 2007).

So off I went up a dark and wet I-95 all the way from NJ, through NY, CT, RI and finally MA for a fifth state pre-dawn, ending up at Hyannis on the south side of Cape Cod around 8:45am.  I rolled into the first of two sites that the bird frequented - and where it was seen multiple times the previous day - whereupon an especially helpful birder told me it was over at the other location only a couple of miles west.  Within 10 minutes of looking, I was watching a Little Egret hunt down small fish at the outflow of a marsh using a foot-trembling method to disturb the mud and/or flush the fish.  All the expected ID marks where there - a more massive bill with gray-ish lores, greenish legs with yellowish feet, overall structure intermediate between Snowy and Great Egret.  While the ID is not trivial at range, this was a good look at a bird that could not be confused with a Snowy Egret.

If the Egret wasn't remote-enough odds, it was standing right next to a Black-headed Gull, itself a relatively rare bird in the USA.  Both of these species I've seen in Britain (memorably I once had about eight Little Egrets in GB in one day in February) where Little Egret have become far more numerous than when I used to live there and where Black-headed Gull is abundant.

In retrospect that quick and easy success with the egret (modulo 5.5 hours of driving) should have led me to turn around and head toward home, not least of all because it was drizzling with low cloud the entire day.  Instead I rolled the dice and when 50 miles further up the Cape to Provincetown in search of Thick-billed Murre.  I'd seen the murres this past summer in AK, but wanted a look in the East.  This was a trip I'd considered during the previous winter - and almost executed - but always delayed it due to bad weather and the sheer distance involved.  Provincetown appears to be one of the better mainland sites for finding TB Murre, however luck wasn't quite with me.  I had three Razorbills at MacMillan Wharf along with Common Loons and one Red-throated, Red-breasted Mergansers, American Black Duck, both Cormorant sp, but no murres.  Race Point at the northern edge of the cape had limited visibility (fog, rain) but had Northern Gannet and one Black Scoter.  Herring Cove on the western tip added White-winged Scoter, a quick return trip to the harbor netted exactly the same species, so I headed back down the cape to check First Encounter Beach where the low tide precluded finding any water bird within the visible range, and Corporation Beach in Dennis where there were a good select of water birds just off the breakwater (new: Horned Grebe) but no alcids.  I did have a single fly-over Redpoll here but simply could not find it in the dark gray sky.  The southerly wind that brought the moisture and relatively mild conditions wasn't exactly conducive to winter finch flight so I was unable to track down any (other) Redpolls or Crossbills.

Heading back to Hyannis once more and finding that the Egret had become elusive (various birders were looking for it) at either of its regular spots, so I decided to make an early start on the return trip, and left the cape around 2:30pm to start the 6+ hour drive home in rather heavier traffic conditions than the early morning outbound trip.

Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) - US bird #676

Van Cortlandt Park/Alley Pond Park Dec 1st

Some days my predictions are luckier than others.  A Barnacle Goose that originally frequented Inwood Hill Park (found Nov 11th, seen over the next few days) had pulled a vanishing act - I went looking for it myself and struck out - and given that there's precious few flat grassy areas in that area I made the prediction via my venerable list eBirdsNYC that it might turn up in Van Cortlandt Park, geographically close albeit in the Bronx and not Manhattan.   In one of those uncommon alignments between plausibility and actual events the Barnacle turned up in Van Cortlandt Park on Nov 26th.

So although I was denied a nice rarity for my Manhattan (NY County) list, I did find my NYC list Barnacle Goose on Dec 1st amongst a large flock of Canada Geese feeding on the parade grounds area on the west side of Van Cortlandt Park.  Taking its cue from the other tame Canadas in this park the Barnacle was not particularly wary, although the light was pretty bad for photography and the bird decided to take a nap, further limiting photo options.  Took me all of 5 minutes to find the bird after finding street parking.  In retrospect I should have stuck around and looked for a Cackling Goose - a rare bird in NYC - amongst the large Canada flocks rather than head out to Queens.

However, flushed with easy success for one NYC bird, I headed out to Alley Pond Park in Queens to search for a more elusive one - the persisting Virginia's Warbler.  Although present for a while it had acquired the reputation for being difficult since it covered a large area in a non-demonstrative way.  In real habitat Virginia's Warbler is rather skulky and difficult to find, too.  Alley Pond Park had clearly taken a beating from Hurricane Sandy with a lot of felled trees although the parks dept had cleared up all the trails.  I predictably failed to find the warbler, and there was really only one part of the park that was at all birding with a mixed flock including chickadees, titmice, robins, Winter Wren and multiple Fox Sparrows.  Most of the woodland was pretty quiet with only a few sparrows.