Mathis Veteran's Memorial Park 4/4--Laughing Gull

There use to be an informal contest among Jersey birders to see who could find the first Laughing Gull of the year. I think Pete Bacinski started it; at least he was the one who seemed to keep track of it. If that contest was still going on today, I would finish a miserable last. Laughing Gull shouldn't be an elusive bird, yet, despite a number of trips to the shore, not to mention Wawa parking lots, I actually had to seek them out today as if they were a rarity. 

After a walk at Double Trouble SP this morning, I drove to the nearest spot where I thought they would be likely and that wouldn't be under water after 3 days of rain--Mathis Veteran's Memorial Park in what I think is Beachwood. This little park fronts onto the Toms River where it gets very wide before entering Barnegat Bay. Sure enough, lining the concrete edge of the parking lot were 35 or 40 Laughing Gulls. Put 'em on the list. 

Embarrassing. 

Not to anthropomorphise, but I think this bird is sneering at me.

Franklin Parker Preserve 1/13--Northern Shrike

That little gray & white pimple at the top of the tree is the Northern Shrike

The Year of Lousy Looks continues. This time, laziness was a factor. No matter where I stood as I circled the old cranberry bog where the long-staying and presumably returning Northern Shrike has been for the last couple of months, the shrike was always too far away to get a good look at it with binoculars. Had I lugged my scope out there I probably would have been able to see it more clearly. But that's a long haul on a cold morning. Fortunately, after I spotted a gray and white bird perched on a dead tree in the middle of the bog, it turned its head a few times letting me see its black mask, so I was able to rule out mockingbird. But again, had this been a life bird, it would have been a disappointing sighting. As it was, I was pleased that I found it on my own. Last time, 3 circuits of the bog were fruitless until a friend walked out there with me and spotted it right away. 

There were two species that actually were more interesting to me this morning than the shrike; one was the adult Bald Eagle with a ton of sticks in its talons, indicating a nearby nest and the other were the two Wilson's Snipes that flushed out of the frozen bog as I made my way around. Non-shore shorebirds are always a treat. 

Of course, lousy looks are better than no looks, which is how the rest of my day went. After lunch I had decided to go over to Toms River to see if I could spot the Canvasbacks there but just as I got in the car I received a text that a Common Gallinule had been spotted in Holly Lake in Tuckerton, so I drove down there first. 45 minutes later I was looking at a single American Coot diving beneath a dock, the only open water on the pond. I'm sure the gallinule was somewhere in the vicinity, hard up against the shore where I couldn't get an angle on it. A wise birder once told me you should stay in a place at least as long as it took you get there, but after 45 minutes I still only had the coot along with ducks, swans, and gulls...and a muskrat. 

So, back to plan A, a drive up to Toms River but by the time I got there, what with the fishermen on a sandy spit and paddleboarder making his way around the ice floes, the ducks on the water didn't seem happy and none of the unhappy ducks were Canvasbacks. Had you traced my path at both Mathis and Riverfront you would have thought I was executing a problem in trigonometry as I set up the scope at various points in both places. Big birds, hard to miss, but I missed them. Wonder where they went? 

Brick 2/10--Redhead

Used to be, 'round these parts, finding a Redhead was an event. What you'd do is go over to Toms River and sort through the Canvasbacks at Riverfront Landing or across the way at Mathis Park (the most reliable spot in Ocean County for these big ducks) and maybe you'd find one duck that in the glare and distance was most probably a Redhead. Once in a while maybe there'd be one with the scaups on Lake of the Lilies in Point Beach. It's a great looking duck and worth the search. 

Then, a few years ago, for some inexplicable reason, large rafts of Redheads appeared on upper Barnegat Bay off of Mantoloking in Brick, mixed in with the Greater Scaup. Suddenly, you went from being happy with one to getting flagged on eBird for listing 60, 100, 150 Redheads. What made this obscure part of the bay attractive to aythya no one knows. I'd guess it was just chance at first ("everybody's gotta be some place," as the philosopher Myron Cohen observed) and then they returned to the same spot as people do who really like Disney World. 

This year I've only made one trip to Lake of the Lilies and there was no Redhead there and Riverfront's Canvasbacks weren't hiding one either, so last month, after I got the car serviced in Lakewood I drove over to the same area in Brick where a large raft kept popping up on eBird. It was a snowy/sleety day and of course, I couldn't find a single Redhead. 

I don't have much occasion to be up that way and I was hesitant about making a special trip "just to get it on the list," but when I saw that Mike had 150 of them yesterday, I was tempted. I really like Redheads. As it happens, Mike & I were birding together today down in Manahawkin and on Cedar Bonnet Island; we had a pretty good day, highlighted by two Tricolored Herons that flew over us and landed in the marsh at Manahawkin. Not year birds for either of us, but still a rarity this time of year. 

After we'd finished walking around Cedar Bonnet and had logged over 4 miles for the day, the thought of all those Redheads still nagged at me. I doubted the flock would suddenly disappear and the day was clear and just above freezing so I got on the Parkway and drove the 25 miles or so up to Brick where I found the Redheads just where they should have been. No glare to deal with, just distance and overcast conditions but, without being totally anal about, I did count 80 birds mixed in with the Greater Scaup flock of about 200. Diving ducks are hard to count because at any one time a third to a half of them are under water. Anyway, "you only need one." I just wish I could have taken better pictures of this handsome bird, but distance and lighting conditions were against me with both my camera and my phone pressed against my scope's eyepiece. At least the drive was not for naught. 

Mixed flock of Redheads and scaup

Lake of the Lilies | Mathis Park 1/10--Wood Duck, Canvasback

Canvasbacks, Mathis Park

Today I methodically went looking for ducks--and geese. Did well with the ducks, getting my two favorites. Geese were another story.

I started the morning at Lake of Lilies, always a good winter spot for ducks. I was specifically trying to get my year Wood Duck. Wood Duck isn't that hard to find, but there weren't any at Colliers Mills the other day. Fortunately, after a cold snap, the weather was warm this morning and the lake was all open water. Mostly there were scaup on the water, both varieties, though more heavily of the Lesser variety, and quite a few Hooded Mergansers (which may be #3 on the duck hit parade). Toward the eastern end of the lake a big flock of Mallards was dabbling--both wild and a motley assemblage of domestic types. Mixed in with them, as it was late in December, was a fine looking drake Woodie.

Wood Duck  1    

Mallard  60

Mallard (Domestic type)  20

Greater Scaup  15

Lesser Scaup  125

Bufflehead  1

Hooded Merganser  21

Ruddy Duck  10

Pied-billed Grebe  1

American Coot  15

Ring-billed Gull  1

Herring Gull  50

Great Black-backed Gull  10

Double-crested Cormorant  3

Blue Jay  1    Heard

I stopped off at the Manasquan Inlet hoping for some activity but it was pretty quiet there--no Razorbills flying by or loafing off the jetty, no Purple Sandpipers on the rocks below. Both loons, some Long-tailed Ducks, gulls. The amusement of the day was watching three drift out of the inlet into the open water. They got pretty far out off the jetty. In my imagination one of the swans was saying to the other two, "Wait a minute! We're surrounded by loons and sea ducks. There's no food out here, the water's forty feet deep!" Because suddenly the trio picked up and flew back up the inlet toward the shallow end.

Then I drove up into Monmouth County trying for a couple of rare geese. Yesterday there was a Greater White-fronted Goose on Lake Como so I made that my first stop. There were 120 Ruddy Ducks on the water, but not a goose to be seen. Then. I was there around 10 o'clock. When I got back home this afternoon, I saw that around noon a big flock of geese was on the lake and among them was the Greater White-fronted. Obviously, they flew in after I left to go up to Lake Takanassee where I was hoping to find the Cackling Goose that has been reported on & off for a month. Again, no luck. There were only 60 or 70 Canada Geese to look through  and I looked at every one, so it is unlikely that I missed it. Bad timing and bad luck.

I figured I'd just go home but I saw that a friend of mine had my other favorite duck in South Toms River which is only a slight detour, so I went to Mathis Veterans Memorial Park and saw a dozen Canvasbacks floating in front of the houseboat. This was the third time this year I've looked for Canvasbacks in this very reliable location; the first two times I looked for them from Riverfront Landing, which is on the other side of Mathis, but because of the angles of the piers in the marina, it is sometimes impossible to see the ducks, even though you actually much closer to them than at Mathis. In any case, I got these, the largest of the North American diving ducks (really? Bigger than Common Merganser?) on my list. Even from a distance, they're an impressive duck. Canvasback also happened to be my 100th species for the year.

Nothing else of note on what is either the Toms River or an estuary. Surprisingly, no Ruddy Ducks that I could find which was odd, because both times at Riverfront, they were the predominant duck.

Mute Swan  2

Canvasback  12

Ring-necked Duck  1    with scaup

Lesser Scaup  9

Bufflehead  25

Ring-billed Gull  20

Herring Gull  30

Double-crested Cormorant  1