A mistake............ The Boardwalk was fine with Ibis's galore. Funny, when you read the field guides, one begins to understand that perhaps, just perhaps....there might be a White-faced Ibis tucked in with the Glossy. Now the funny part is that down in Patagonia Arizona, they say that there might be a Glossy Ibis tucked in amongst all of the White-faced. So the moral of that little tidbit is that if you just go to where they are fairly 'native' to begin with, you don't have to worry about finding that one lost soul amongst the others. I spent the past few weeks in Arizona hunting for the Glossy, and here in New Jersey...I spend my time hunting for the White-faced. While .......I saw aplenty of each, just in a different locale. The same has occurred to me with Mississippi Kites. I would go down to Cape May and stare up, and find a few kites a few miles away, or so it would seem. Then I head down to Duro Canyon in west Texas and find they have permanent residence status. So....go to where they are, is my advice.
I met a nice couple from New York on the Boardwalk who mentioned they heard the Black Rail down at Stepson's Island Road, hence....after Forsythe, I headed down to the Belle Plain area. More on that to come....
Gull pond and the tower....home of our Duck brigade of birders just the day before, hosted little to entice one. But down the first leg of the drive....oo la la.... That is, if one could have possibly managed to get out of the car or open the window a fraction without having been eaten raw by gnats. I would stop the car and roll down the window and I would slowly see this mist of gnats beginning to form like a cloud of dust. The longer the window was down....the more they came at me. Even after rolling up the window the gnats had already entrenched themselves all over the car and my body. Not having any bug spray at all.....they found me.
But after rolling up the windows I would speed up to the max speed of 'whatever' and then roll the windows down once more. With my hat, I would be reaching around the car inners to wallop them away and out the window. I must have looked like a madman from behind with my arms flaying, hat swishing the car top....my car drunkenly pacing itself down the drive from one side to the other. Then, I would quickly roll up the windows....stop...gaze around to see the Dunlins, Dowitchers (I think short), Willets, and yes....this Night Heron basking in the sun. I tried to take a shot of this heron with the windows up (as I like to pretend I learn from my mistakes) but to no avail as the window was already smeared with dead gnats. So I unrolled the window---grabbed a few shots....and then sped up and did my crazy man routine once more.
Along about the second leg.....hey mom, no gnats...... A few good birds such as the Black Bellied Plover though and a continuation of the Forster's Tern. As Don Freiday would say, one can always appear smart by knowing that they are Forster's Terns since they love these marsh waters while the Common Tern is the one you see at the beaches swooping around the waves. Remember that.... See below....a good shot of Forster's Tern.
So.....on to Belle Plain.......