The back side of our 2 day trip to NJ is spent at Brigantine NWR just below Smithville, NJ. The water is higher than any of us have ever seen it in the reserve, but that's OK. At this time of year, we don't expect to find a great number of waders and shore birds. We're looking for wintering waterfowl. Hence, the more water, the happier they are and the more contented we become. Adding to our year list of ducks, we find Pin-tails, Hooded mergs and Buffleheads among the target birds...the beautiful and bountiful Snow geese. Literally thousands of these spectacular birds dot the marshlands. Among the white, we spot an occasional "blue morph". Try as we might, no Ross's could be find, however. The real find of the day was towards the end of the loop where we came upon a group of 9 Trumpeter swans. We really worked hard at identifying these and making sure we didn't have something more common like an immature mute or a tundra. But these birds had deep black bills and out of the entire group, we could find NO yellow on any of the lores. The black of the bill blended right into the eye and the heads seemed to be more angular than those of the tundra. And so, we made the commitment to Trumpeter. Later, we stopped by the Manahawkin Wildlife Management Area and in spite of being skunked as far as our target Short-eared owls were concerned, had a fine time observing a group of two female and one male harrier work the late day waning sun. We have to head back to NY tomorrow and will begin our annual Waterfowl count along the Hudson for DEC. The weather is promising to make it a pleasant excursion once again.
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