We visited family in New Jersey for Memorial Day weekend. On May 28 Dave, BB (Baby Birder), and I spent the morning at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. It was a lovely morning with loads of shorebirds and seabirds. We observed 48 species and added 2 new birds to our life life: a Marbled Godwit and Bank Swallows. Here are some of the highlights:
Seabirds: Common Terns, Forster Terns, Least Terns, Gull-billed Terns, Black Skimmers, Great Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Laughing Gulls, Double-crested Cormorants
Forster’s Tern (Image by Michelle Horowitz)Black Skimmers (Image by David Horowitz)
Ruddy Turnstone breeding adult (Image by Michelle Horowitz)
Other Highlights: A Clapper Rail running across the mudflats, 24 Osprey, Marsh Wrens, lots of Red-winged Blackbirds, a horseshoe crab, and many Diamondback Terrapins
Diamondback Terrapin (Image by David Horowitz)Diamondback Terrapins basking in the Sun (Image by David Horowitz)
October 22 is a special day for Dave and I. It’s our anniversary date. So we thought what better way to spend our 9 year anniversary than at one of our favorite birding locations: Edwin B. Forsythe NWR.
We couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather. It ended up getting quite warm today, but in the mid-morning it was cool and breezy. Even though the weather has been kind of strange lately, you can tell that winter will be on it’s way in a few months from the flocks that were hanging around.
The flocks of Black Skimmers, Forster’s Terns, Laughing Gulls, Great Egrets, Glossy Ibis and other summer visitors have been replaced by waterfowl. I did end up seeing 2 Forster’s Terns and a few Great Egrets, but it was clear the winter crowd is slowly starting to take over. There were still plenty of Snowy Egrets wading through the water and a large flock of Tree Swallows scooping up the flies that are still hanging on to the warm weather.
Waterfowl observed included Wood Ducks, Mallards, Northern Pintails, American Black Ducks, Canada Geese, and over 40 (!) Mute Swans. We didn’t add any new birds to our life list overall, but we did add someone new to our park list: Pied-billed Grebes! We saw at least 6 in different parts of the refuge, sometimes in pairs. This was the first time we’ve seen them at Forsythe although we have seen this grebe species elsewhere (like this surprise one at Strawbridge Lake. There were a few raptors hanging around as well: 2 Cooper’s Hawks, a Red-tailed Hawk, and a female Northern Harrier.
The highlight of the trip for me were the Boat-tailed Grackles. I’ve seen one or two from a distance before, but this was the first time we saw a flock and we were able to get close to them. They were really fun to watch and very noisy. Boat-tailed Grackles and Common Grackles are similar, but do have some distinct differences. Boat-tailed Grackles are larger, have longer tails, have larger bills, and are more of a bluish iridescence. We saw both male and female Boat-tailed Grackles. The females are rufous brown with dark tails and wings. They were really beautiful.
Boat-tailed Grackle male singing (Image by David Horowitz)
Boat-tailed Grackle female (Image by BirdNation)
Boat-tailed Grackle on sign (Image by BirdNation)
We even got a few videos of their calls. Their common songs is a jeeb-jeeb-jeeb sound but like other grackles they make a variety of calls, whistles, guttural noises, and clicks. I like that after the grackle in the first video calls it makes a wing flutter that makes an interesting sound. (These videos were taken on my Iphone, so please excuse the quality :-), I was more concerned about the sounds).
Overall we saw 29 species on our Forsythe trip. I’m glad we got to spend our special day at one of our favorite birding areas. Here’s to many more years of birding together! ❤
BirdNation 