{"id":1152,"date":"2007-03-13T00:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-13T00:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:35:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:35:29","slug":"pine-barrens-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1152","title":{"rendered":"Pine Barrens birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I mentioned that I had gone on a bird walk in the Pine Barrens yesterday. While I’ve spent a fair amount of time wandering around there on my own or with a friend who knows the place well, this was the first time I went with a group of birders led by a naturalist from NJ Audubon. The weather was perfect and there were only 8 of us in the group – a plus as far as I’m concerned. I hate birding in big groups of chatty women and hardly ever bird that way anymore. I’m glad I went along though, as I learned a few new spots to visit again on my own.<\/span>
<\/span>
I don’t ordinarily share trip lists here, but we had a few special sightings that make this list worth reading. Going to the Pine Barrens isn’t really about seeing huge numbers of birds; the habitat doesn’t lend itself to great variety, but I think that makes each new species worth the effort of walking through all that sugar sand!<\/span>
<\/span>
Pied-billed Grebe<\/span>
Tundra Swan*<\/span>
Canada Goose<\/span>
Wood Duck<\/span>
Ring-necked Duck<\/span>
Bufflehead<\/span>
Hooded Merganser<\/span>
Turkey Vulture<\/span>
Bald Eagle<\/span>
Red-tailed Hawk<\/span>
Red-bellied Woodpecker<\/span>
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker<\/span>
Downy Woodpecker<\/span>
Eastern Phoebe<\/span>
Blue Jay<\/span>
American Crow<\/span>
Carolina Chickadee<\/span>
Tufted Titmouse<\/span>
White-breasted Nuthatch<\/span>
Brown Creeper (singing!)<\/span>
Carolina Wren<\/span>
Eastern Bluebird<\/span>
Fox Sparrow<\/span>
Song Sparrow<\/span>
White-throated Sparrow<\/span>
Junco<\/span>
<\/span>
Not bad for a late winter day in the Pinelands! The singing Brown Creeper was a treat, as were the Bluebirds, and the Bald Eagle. I was most thrilled to find the Tundra Swans that I’ve been looking for since late November – there was a nice group of about 40 birds feeding in one of the cranberry bogs at the Franklin Parker Preserve. We also found a pair of Wood Ducks way back in the preserve in one of the dikes, but they flushed before I was able to really take in their beautiful colors. I don’t see Wood Ducks often at all, even though they’re a very common nester here in NJ. Anyway, it was a good day.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned that I had gone on a bird walk in the Pine Barrens yesterday. While I’ve spent a fair amount of time wandering around there on my own or with a friend who knows the place well, this was the first time I went with a group of birders led by a naturalist from … Continue reading Pine Barrens birds<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}