4/8/24- Pre-Eclipse Birding at Island Beach SP - Iceland Gull, Redhead and Gray Seals

     Yesterday I had the day to myself and it was the first nice spring day we’ve had around here in awhile so I headed out to my favorite spot, Island Beach State Park.  The much hyped solar eclipse was expected in New Jersey shortly after 2 p.m..  Since we were outside of the path of totality, I felt the event would not have much of an affect on our wildlife.  I never obtained a pair of viewing glasses, so I spent the day walking the trails and driving the beach.  I could always catch the eclipse highlights on the news.

It turned out to be a good day at the park, my most productive birding day of the year, logging 70 bird species.  I saw a few other interesting creatures too:  my first red admiral butterfly of the season, a large black racer snake and two large gray seals resting on the beach.  
Two gray seals basking on the beach, 4/8/24.  © S. Weiss

Young gray seal basking on beach, 3/22/24.  © S. Weiss

Along my drive on the beach, I came upon a young Iceland gull standing near the water.  eBird flagged it as rare, so I took a few photos for documentation.  Bird-wise, the rest of the beach drive did not produce any rare or new year birds, though I did tally three dozen lesser black-backed gulls and eight piping plovers.  Down near the inlet, I did have an American kestrel dart past me.  Unfortunately, they are becoming scarcer at the park.  The two seals were basking on the sand, a few miles apart from each other.  
Iceland gull.  © S. Weiss

After the beach I took a walk down the Spizzle Creek trail with the intent of finding a female common merganser that a friend of mine had recently seen there.  Common mergansers are not common at the park as they prefer freshwater habitat.  Casual eBird reporters often mistakenly identify them as such from the more common, red-breasted mergansers.  Where the trail splits is a pond-like enclosure of the marsh where ducks often gather.  I did a quick scan of the pond and only saw some red-breasted mergansers, bufflehead and some greater scaup.  I did not pick out the common merganser, but another duck caught my eyes.  A drake redhead was associating with the scaup.  Redhead is a rare bird for the park and, according to eBird, rare for the county at this time of year.  On another, and more thorough, scan of the mergansers I finally found the slightly larger common mixed in with its red-breasted cousins.  Near the bird blind hut, I was scanning the northern side of the marsh and noticed a few ducks fly in and disappear in the reeds.  I was able to find them again when they moved through a slight clearing and recognized them as northern pintails.  Like the redhead, eBird considered them to be rare for this time of the year.  Also in the marsh were my fist of the year tricolored herons.  A pair of American wigeons and a few green-winged teals rounded out my list for the day.
American wigeon.  © S. Weiss

Before I left the park the eclipse had begun.  Cloud cover had moved through, somewhat reducing the full spectacle of the event.  But for me, the cloud cover provided a safe screen to see the eclipse and take a few photos of it.  This likely will be the last full eclipse in the east of my lifetime.
Solar eclipse, 4/8/24.  © S. Weiss


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Jersey’s First Limpkin. 11/13/2023

Image
     Yesterday, reports were circulating of a limpkin  at a private residence in Manasquan, Monmouth County.  Pictures of the bird appeared on a Facebook page.  The reports were confirmed, and this was the first limpkin for New Jersey.  Pending acceptance by the New Jersey Birds Record Committee, this will be the 497th species recorded in the state. I am not a Facebook subscriber, so I did not hear about the bird until late on Sunday.  Earlier today, an administrator of the NJ Rare Birds GroupMe reported that the bird was still in town and the homeowners were allowing viewers to see the bird.  I saw that report in midafternoon.  I have seen the bird many times in Florida, where it should be.  I always threw that bird name out whenever there was a discussion about what would be among the next possible birds to appear in the Garden State.  So, after some self-contemplating, I decided to give it a try.  I put the address in to my car navigation system and I was less than a half hour away.
Read more

24 Hour Cape May Pelagic, 6/18-6/19- Skua, Jaeger, Beaked Whales, Devil Ray, Hammerhead Sharks and more

Image
     Just a few days after returning from a Bahamas cruise, I headed down to Cape May for a 24-hour pelagic trip aboard the American Star .  We left the dock at nine in the evening to make our way out about 90 miles offshore.  After about an hour I decided to turn in for the rest of the night.  The boat is set up for daytime whale and dolphin watching tours, so there are no real sleeping quarters on board.  I enveloped myself in a sleeping bag on a metal bench on the upper deck.  The bench was only as wide as me, so it was not a comfortable night.  The sea conditions were not bad, but I catnapped through the night ride trying not to roll off the bench.  Around five o’clock, daylight started to break up the night sky and people began emerging from their makeshift beds.  I’m sure those who brought beanbag cushions slept much better than I did.  Either way I survived the night and the day ahead turned out to be well worth the ride.  We saw the expected pelagic birds for this season, plus
Read more

Cruise to Bahamas- Antillean Nighthawk, Red-legged Thrush & Bahama Woodstar

Image
     This past week my wife and I took a cruise from New Jersey to the Bahamas.  Our ports of call were Port Canaveral, FL, Nassau and the cruise line’s private island in the Bahamas.  Prior to leaving I made a list of new birds I would like to see on the trip.  The list constituted new life birds that could be seen at those locations at this time of year.  In reality it was more of a wish list as I knew I would never get all 35 birds.  I would have been satisfied with one new bird, but I got three and happy. We left Bayonne on Friday and arrived at central Florida on Sunday afternoon.  Before we left I became aware of a wayward Large-billed Tern that showed up in Brevard County.  Large-billed terns are a South American species and look kind of like our Royal Terns , but (of course) with an exceptionally large bill.  This mega rarity would have been a great score, but I had to take a pass.  It seemed too convenient as Port Canaveral is also located in Brevard County.  Unfortunately, a
Read more