Today was an interesting morning, with two hours or so spent birding in the Great Bay Boulevard WMA, via the ~3.5-mile two-lane road that heads straight into the marshes of Great Bay in Tuckerton, New Jersey, and ending near a sandy beach at the tip of the marsh.
An aerial view showing Great Bay Boulevard and its path through the Tuckerton marshes.
It’s an interesting place to bird, with extensive marsh extending on both sides of the road, and pockets of shallow pools and channels that can hold nice collections of shorebirds and waders. Typically the birding here is from a car with occasional stops to scan the marsh, thereby requiring relatively little walking. Naturally, we were hoping for some of the more difficult-to-see species, such as American Avocet or White Ibis, each of which has been spotted from this road this spring. Unfortunately, neither of these species was in the cards for us today. The day was not lost however, as I crossed one of the small bridges and came upon a pool right next to the road that was simply filled with wading birds. Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Glossy Ibis, Little Blue Herons, Great Blue Herons, and Tricolored Herons were all present. The proximity and numbers were stunning. I have never seen this concentration of waders in New Jersey or even in Florida. I just parked there and sat in gleeful silence, enjoying the scene as cars passed by without stopping because they weren’t rare birds. It was a great reminder to me of the pleasures of common birds and that if you can’t enjoy common birds then you might as well just hang up the binoculars.
Part of the extensive concentrated roadside group of waders. A delightful sea of white.
There were a few other ‘nice’ birds there too, including Black Skimmers, Least Terns, and Gull-billed Terns. For some reason I am drawn to ibis, and a cooperative Glossy Ibis helped to make my photographic day.
Glossy Ibis at close range.
After finishing with birding there and heading to a barbeque picnic, we learned that two other birders just reported seeing five American Avocets on Great Bay Boulevard. Somehow we missed them, but somehow it didn’t matter too much.