Birds and Other Nature Sightings

 After a week's absence, I took a drive to one of my favorite places at the Jersey Shore, Island Beach State Park.  I spent Sunday, Father’s Day, with family.  Late in the day I saw that a couple of white ibis were reported there in the morning, and in the afternoon my friend, Chris, texted that he had seen and photographed a Manx shearwater off the end of the Barnegat Inlet jetty.  Both species, from where they were reported, are rare.  White ibis sightings in New Jersey are becoming more and more frequent and, as such, they had been removed from the NJ Bird Records Committee’s list of reviewable birds.  The Manx shearwater is a pelagic species, not uncommon in NJ waters, but rare and reviewable when seen from land.  This small shearwater could easily be missed by many birders, but Chris is an experienced pelagic birder and is very familiar with them.  It was too late in the afternoon when I saw the reports, so I decided to wait until morning to ...