Two New Birds Visit NJ

      In my last post I gave a brief review of the eight birds that made New Jersey’s State Bird List in 2022.  Well, since then, two more birds made their first appearances in the Garden State.  Pending review and acceptance by the NJ Bird Records Committee, the state list may jump to 496 species.

On May 1, a Red-footed Booby was photographed on a farm in Burlington County.  The wayward bird was on private property, and a few people with permission to find the bird for possible rehabilitation rescue were unable to relocate it.  It presumably continued on elsewhere.  Red-footed boobies are tropical ocean birds and are rarely seen in the continental United States.  One was most recently seen in Wake County near Raleigh, NC this past March.

On May 2, a keen and seasoned birder photographed a Black-whiskered Vireo at Island Beach State Park in Ocean County.  This bird has yet to be relocated, and may also have moved on to new environs.  Black-whiskered vireos are similar in appearance to red-eyed vireos (which are common here now).  Their U.S. range is mostly along the Gulf Coast up to around Virginia.

These two potential new birds may have found their way here via the recent weekend-long wind and rain system that saturated the area.  The storm system have accounted for a few other birds, not new, but definitely noteworthy: a Manx Shearwater and Red-necked Phalarope at Manasquan inlet, and a few early Wilson’s Storm-Petrels along the shore, all on April 29; and a Gray Kingbird photographed at Barnegat Light State Park on April 30.  On May 3, I spotted six late Razorbills flying south over the Barnegat Bay near the northern end of Island Beach.

You never know what you can find, especially if you’re not looking.