The past month or so has been quite good birding-wise, considering the fact that I have scads of school-related things to do and other responsibilities. One Friday in the last week of February, my mom generously gave me a ride to the quaint industrial borough of Little Ferry, where I scanned the Hackensack River for a half-hour, looking mainly for ducks. Highlights were 6 varieties of duck including Canvasback, Bufflehead, Northern Shoveler, and Ruddy, the latter being a life bird. Other goodies were Double-crested Cormorant and Great Black-backed Gull. Not too shabby--6 year birds for the county! (I'm sort of doing a very unofficial Bergen County Big Year, although I don't know how it's going to work out yet).
The following week my mother again kindly offered to drive me to a small park in Ridgewood, where a lovely Red-headed Woodpecker had been reported since the beginning of the winter. After a few minutes, I spotted the fellow, who was quite lively and allowed for nice looks.
Then, of course, came the whole Pink-footed Goose fiasco. I went to look for it twice in one day, but it was a no show. It's times like this when I really wish I could drive! Anyway, he's probably on his way back to Greenland by now, but I still managed to grab a handful of year birds at Schlegel Lake, where the goose was reported: Ring-necked Duck, Hooded Merg, and Killdeer.
This past Friday, I had some of the best non-peak-of-migration birding I've ever had at the local patch. An early Eastern Phoebe beat my last year's arrival record by 8 days, and gave beautiful looks. I also had a wonderful Wood Duck couple on the pond.
On Thursday, I hope to be heading down to Florida with my family for a couple days. As I most probably will not be going to wetlands of any kind, my birding focus will be primarily shorebirds and early migrant passerines. We'll see what happens (so far, nothing's working to convince my family to go to the Everglades! :(
Good birding!
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