Sunny, calm, and
pleasant – Low 70s
We missed several of the
target birds yesterday….namely the Clapper rail, the American bittern, and the
Marbled godwit. With a mission in
mind, we retraced our steps and headed back down to this birding mecca on a
picture perfect weather day. In
addition to our three targets, we set our species goal at a total of 45
birds.
We started off with a bang as
on our first walk down the boardwalk, we heard the unmistakable clucking of the
Clapper. With just a little
patience, we were rewarded with great views as the rail strolled down the edge
of the marsh directly across from our vantage point on the observation
platform. We watched as he
eventually crept back into the thick marsh grasses and disappeared from view.
One down, two to go.
As we drove down the south leg
of the 8 mile drive, started checking off birds left and right. Kingfisher, Savannah sparrow, Lesser
and Greater yellowlegs, several juvenile Black-crowned Night herons, hundreds
of Great egrets and snowy egrets, Great blue herons, and Forster’s terns were
among the birds checked off, and we were just beginning. Heck, 45 was going to be a piece of cake.
As is generally the case,
however, when you first start a list, the numbers mount up fast and furious and
then start to plateau off. Today
was no different. Suddenly, while we were seeing plenty of birds, they were
simply more of the same. If we had
a dollar for every Tree swallow we saw, we’d be wealthy people. Our list slowly did grow with the addition of some real nice birds like this yellow warbler, but we were
hard pressed to find the other two target birds. We pushed on valiantly, but began to lose hope.
As we moved on down the back
side of the refuge, we began to bag a few different species, and we were
growing closer to our goal of 45.
Black skimmers, Greater Black-backed gulls, Semi-palmated sandpipers,
and several Caspian terns with their bright red bills helped us toward the
magic number. We were especially pleased to add target bird number 2, the American bittern, to our list.
As we wound down at the
Visitor’s Center, we ran into birder extrodenaire and the manager of the
refuge, Don Freiday. He suggested
we travel back down to the West Pond and try for Soras which he had found
earlier in day. We agreed and
although we missed the sora, we did pick up one more for the list. We were stuck at 42…..3 shy of the 45
we had hoped for. Likewise, we failed to get all three target birds since the godwit also eluded us.
As we drove down
the Garden State, Bobby (our host for the weekend) spotted a majestic Bald
eagle (mature) flying overhead.
Still, not quite 45.
As I write this, we are heading down Rte 72 heading into Manahawkin, so
there is still some time to get those last few birds. (Post script - made it home without scoring on the last 2 birds. Still, can't complain about a beautiful day with great friends and great birds in a great locale. It's a wonderful life!)
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