Muck Birding

Last night I dreamed I was in a swamp and almost put my hand on a Cottonmouth.  I should have known it was going to be one of those days.

A good day, but a mucky one!  After finding a Semipalmated Plover (2012 County Bird #204) I got a text saying there was a singing Prothonotary Warbler at the other end of the reservoir.  Boots would be required to see the bird.

How bad could the mud be?  How badly did I want this local rarity for my year list?

20 minutes later, I'm in a swamp that looks like my dream, ankle deep in mud.  Fortunately I did hear the bird.  I was even able to photograph it with my Nikon CoolPix P500.

What?  You can't see the bird?  It was 100 yards away, how good a shot did you expect me to get?  Does this help?

 

 Maybe this will help you out...

OK, the photo stinks.  But at that distance with my handheld camera at maximum 36x zoom, could have been worse!

At one point, for maybe a couple seconds, it was actually closer, but mostly 2012 County Bird #205 was just heard singing and gave me only a quick glimpse. 

Hiking back out of the swamp we ran into this mother giving birth:

Looks painful.  And muddy.

Here you can barely see a couple of her eggs under the mother snapping turtle's hind digging foot.  This was her second hole, about 10 yards away from where she was seen digging a bit earlier.

It's a tough world out there for little turtle eggs.  Here's hoping a few evade the raccoons, and are able to make it out of this newly planted field alive.

Hayseed Snow Goose

Snow Goose, Spruce Run, Hunterdon County, NJ, 22 May 2012

Most Snow Geese left New Jersey months ago, this young bird apparently isn't going to Arctic Canada this year--he's been hanging out with some Canada Geese at Spruce Run.  I think he's a redneck wannabee.  What makes me say that?  He's a real hayseed.  Check out the closeup.

Might as well be auditioning for a spot on Hee Haw!

Color Banded Cormorant

Digiscoped with HTC Incredible phone through Kowa 883 scope.

This morning I found this young Double-crested Cormorant at Spruce Run.  Note the orange color band on the left leg and silver federal band on the right. I submitted the color band code I was able to read (0F9) to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory, and look forward to hearing where this bird comes from.

Bobolinks are Back

The Bobolinks are back at Hoffman Park just up the road from my house.  The males are chasing each other and the females across the large fields.  Hard to get close enough for a photo--especially when they seem to fly to the other end of the field whenever I get out my camera!

Party Wren is in Da House Tonight!

Everybody's gonna have a good time!

I watched this House Wren building a nest in a box at Voorhees State Park in Hunterdon County, NJ today.  Interestingly, he didn't want to use the official nest entrance hole, but insisted on going in and out of the more protected ventilation hole at the top right above the "real" nest hole!

Rarity in the Fog

It started raining about 11pm last night, so I suspected any migrants passing through might get knocked down and headed out early to Spruce Run Reservoir just down the road.  Here's what I could see when I wasn't wiping the mist from my scope.

This is with my 36x optical zoom.  I could only see a bit better with my scope.  The birds on the left are Buffleheads.  The four on the right are grebes.  Can you tell that one of these grebes is not like the others?

How about now?

I watched the birds for over 10 minutes, and could tell that one was clearly smaller, riding lower in the water, with a thinner neck.  At times it seemed like the bird had a thinner, sharper, slightly upturned bill.  And a pointing headed profile, with a peak above the eye.  While the other three are chunky Horned Grebes, the smaller one is an Eared Grebe--a rarity in New Jersey.  

Did I see it well enough to be sure of the identification?  Or was my old scope and bad lighting and distance playing tricks on me?  

After watching a bit more I couldn't make it into a Horned Grebe, so I made the call and waited for confirming backup to arrive.

The first birder on the scene could tell it was smaller, but wasn't comfortable making the call.  Finally others arrived, and with perhaps better light, and less mist, everyone finally got a good enough look to confirm the ID.  Whew!  Nothing like putting your birding reputation on the line!

Turns out it was a fantastic day at the reservoir, with 10 Long-tailed Ducks, 6 Canvasbacks,5 Greater Scaup, over 150 Buffleheads, 6 Common Loons, and some Red-breasted Mergansers making it the heaviest waterfowl event of the season so far.  The first Greater Yellowlegs of the season flew over, and later 23 Bonaparte's Gulls stopped by, and after I left apparently 29 Red-throated Loons stopped in.  You've just gotta go birding in the rain when you get a storm like this. 

Tom Smith got some slightly better photos of the Eared Grebe here.

Trash Bird

OK, can you tell what it is?  The bird, not the trash :-)

Here's a better shot.

Here's a slightly fuzzy shot of the bird hopping up and surface gleaning from a bare branch.

All in all a nice walk this morning around the boat launch at Spruce Run.  Relocated the Vesper Sparrow found this morning by Frank Sencher, as well as my first of year Palm Warbler shown here, and first of year Brown Thrasher singing from scrub along access road to the boat launch.