4/5/24 - Post Earthquake Birding- Hooded Warbler at Island Beach

April 07, 2024

Mother Nature has been spreading her wrath across the country lately and New Jersey has not escaped her fury. For three days this week wind and rain dumped a few more inches of precipitation on the already soggy Garden State. The lousy conditions kept me close to home, only birding my backyard and the recreation fields down the street. I did hear my first Eastern screech-owl of the year a couple nights earlier in the week. I could hear the soft trilling song coming from the woods behind my yard. Hopefully it and a mate will find the nest box I attached to a pine tree just behind my back fence.

The recreation fields down the street are part of the township’s Shelter Cove Park. The ball fields are bordered by a salt marsh and bay beach. During the Revolutionary War era, this area was part of the Pennsylvania Salt Works. Now, spring rains often flood the fields which in turn attracts spring migrants. Ospreys have already reclaimed nests left atop the light posts around the fields, and killdeer are staking out nesting locations in the dirt and grass areas between the parking lots. On Wednesday I spotted a snowy egret and both greater and lesser yellowlegs foraging in the saturated grass. A pair of gadwall nearly went unnoticed as they were mixed with the dozens of mallards living it up in the deep puddles along the edges of the fields. On Thursday I saw two glossy ibis probing the grass and I later flushed up six Wilson’s snipe by walking the far edge of the fields near the marsh. Soon there should be other egrets, herons, sandpipers, dowitchers and the like foraging across those fields.

I was taking my time around the house today, not in such a rush to get out and explore. The sun had come out yet the gusty winds, which seem to have been around for weeks now, continued. But Mother Nature still was not done. Shortly before 10:30, I felt a rumbling about the house. It first felt like a very large truck coming down the street, but the rumbling continued for at least ten seconds and I knew something else was going on. Then the phone calls and text messages started. It was a 4.8 magnitude earthquake, centered about 60 miles to the north. Not much by California standards, but the earth rattling is quite the event here in New Jersey. After surviving the Quake of ‘24, I headed out to Island Beach State Park to see if the near apocalypse brought anything new to the area.

There I picked up four new year birds, three of which will be fairly common at the state park as the weather warms. The birds that I knew I would see eventually were an Eastern towhee, a brown thrasher and three little blue herons. The fourth bird, a hooded warbler, was a surprise. Hooded warblers are an uncommon spring migrant at the barrier island park. This one showed up several weeks ahead of its expected time frame, making it a rare sighting according to eBird. I got a few distant photos to document it before I lost it. This was my second rare early arrival of the season. On March 10, I had a northern parula appear at my backyard fishpond, a good month and a half early.

Let’s see what Monday’s solar eclipse might bring.