Birds and Other Nature Sightings

     The year of alcids continued this week when a Common Murre was found at Manasquan Inlet along the border of Ocean and Monmouth counties.  Common murre is a difficult bird for Ocean County, as well as much of New Jersey.  It is considered rare, and most sightings are pelagic.  As such, common murre is a NJ Bird Records Committee r eviewable species for land-based sightings.  The last common murre for Ocean County was at Manasquan Inlet in February 2011.  If accepted by the NJBRC, this would be the second latest date for a common murre in New Jersey ( http://njbrc.com/documents/ARL.pdf ). This alcid was discovered late Monday afternoon.  I was already in for the day and chose not to go for it.  It was still around on Tuesday, but I had family obligations and could not get over to the inlet.  However, since a few people reported seeing the murre after sunset, I felt that was a good sign it would stay around for at least another ...

     The past two days birding were very productive for winter sea birds.  On Monday I joined a group of birders on an inshore pelagic trip as part of the Barnegat (NJ) Christmas Bird Count.  We spent about ten hours on a boat patrolling the ocean boundaries of the area covered by the Bird Count in Ocean County, from Barnegat Inlet to the southern end of Holgate.  On Tuesday I spent about four hours at the opposite end of the county, at Manasquan Inlet standing on the jetty on the Point Pleasant side.  Both days were mostly highlighted by alcids - Razorbills  and Dovekies , and small gulls - Bonaparte’s and Little . The front end of a line of razorbills during morning flight.   © S. Weiss For the previous week or so, razorbills had been reported in huge numbers along the New Jersey coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May.  Observers reported hundreds of birds passing each day.  The birds didn’t disappoint us on Monday either.  ...