10/27/2024 - Island Beach State Park - Sedge Wren

     This past Sunday I was pretty much just hanging around the house when I received an early afternoon text from my friend Scott.  He was birding Island Beach State Park and had found a sedge wren.  He asked if I needed one for the park.  I immediately answered, “Yes.”  I gathered my camera and binoculars and set out for the park.  Luckily for me the park is only a ten to 15 minute drive away.

Scott is a great birder and often leads birding walks at the park.  We try to help each other out by alerting the other if either of us finds a personal new patch bird there.  Except for the crazy accidental birds or locally extirpated species, there are not many birds that the two of us have not seen there.  Sedge wren was a new one.
Sedge wren, July 2023.  © S. Weiss

Sedge wrens were once breeders in New Jersey but are now considered rare throughout the state.  A few are encountered annually, mostly as migrants in the fall and winter.  They are even more rare at this park.  The only Island Beach record, through my research, was a bird banded in 1965.  At that time sedge wrens were called short-billed marsh wrens.

I got to the location where Scott had seen it earlier and started looking and listening for it.  Scott had continued birding but was enroute back to where I was.  The spot is good habitat for the bird, a marshy area with both tall and short reed grass and spartina with a few dead cedar snags.  The sedge wren, like most wrens, is a skulker.  A small, sandy colored bird, it travels through the reeds well camouflaged.  Also, like most wrens, it is often heard before it is seen.  I thought I briefly heard it further back in the grasses, but there were several other vocal birds milling about in the area.  I waited for Scott to arrive since he has better voice identification skills than do I.  Plus, he has a knack for attracting birds with just his presence.

Soon after he returned, we heard a call which he said was the wren.  We were able to find a spot so we could get closer to its location without trampling the landscape beneath our feet.  We heard the bird calls get closer and after a few minutes it popped up briefly on a snag to give us clear looks at it.  It almost as quickly dropped back into the grass and out of sight.  I did not grab a photo of it since I had left my camera in the car, and I tried using my phone to record it calling.  Didn’t get that either.  But I did get satisfying looks at it to make it my 288th species for the park.

That was our fourth wren species for the day.  We also had a resident Carolina wren, a winter wren and a late calling marsh wren.  We missed a northern house wren, which may have already departed our area for the year.  Those are the five species found in New Jersey.  Two others, Bewick’s wren and rock wren, have been recorded in the state.  The last Bewick’s wren in NJ was banded at the park on May 5, 1977.
New Jersey's other four wren species.  Clockwise from top left:  Carolina wren, marsh wren, northern house wren and winter wren.  © S. Weiss

New Jersey's other recorded wren species.  Left, Bewick's wren.  Right, rock wren.  © S. Weiss

It is now my turn to return the favor to Scott.  I believe he needs an eared grebe for that location.  I’ll do my best to find one for him.

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