Birding News and Features

Garret Mountain In Spring

Garret Mountain Reservation in Woodland Park, Passaic County is a fantastic place to witness spring migration during April and May.  An ever-changing kaleidoscope of species pause here to feed and rest at this green oasis near the city of Paterson.  On a May day with active migration, birders can hope for myriad flycatchers, vireos, thrushes, and 20+ species of warblers.   

Scott Barnes, Bird Programs Director at New Jersey Audubon has written an article detailing how to bird this hotspot, and what birds to you might find through the course of the spring. You can also get detailed information as to the timing of individual species, and how abundant they are by viewing the complete Garret Mountain eBird checklist.  For example, a quick look at the checklist shows us that Rose-breasted Grosbeak migration peaks during the first two weeks of May, with a high count of 29 individuals recorded at Garret.

New Jersey Audubon's All Things Birds has three field trips to Garret in May.  All trips meet at 8:15 at Rifle Camp Park:

Saturday May 5 with Pete Bacinski, Carole Hughes, Patrick Belardo, and Rob Fanning

Thursday May 10 with Scott Barnes and Linda Mack

Thursday May 17 with Scott Barnes and Linda Mack

To register and/or for more information, contact Scherman Hoffman Sanctuary at 908-766-5787 or scherman-hoffman@njaudubon.org

How To Identify and Find Barn Owl in New Jersey

New Jersey Audubon Associate Naturalist and NJ eBird reviewer Michael Britt has written an article detailing how to search for and identify Barn Owls in the Garden State.  Mike has spent countless hours studying Barn Owls in their urban haunts across north jersey and beyond.  Learn about the species' natural history, how to find and search appropriate habitat for Barn Owls, and how to separate them from other nocturnal raptors in this thorough article.

The Little Gull in New Jersey

Associate naturalist and NJ Bird Records Committee member Tom Boyle has written an article detailing the status and distribution of Little Gull in New Jersey.  Learn about how to separate this attractive gull from similar Bonaparte's and Black-headed Gulls and find tips on when and where it can be found in the state.  You can also join a NJ Audubon "All Things Birds" field trip with Scott Barnes to the Morgan Ave Mudflats/South Amboy area on April 21 in search of Little Gull and more. Additional field trip information can be found on our Calendar of Events.

Spring Hawk Watching at Sandy Hook & Montclair

Spring is in the air and raptors are on the move!  Sandy Hook and Montclair are two places where birders can join an official hawk counter and witness raptors and other migrants as they wing their way north.  New Jersey Audubon partners with the National Park Service to conduct the Migration Watch at Sandy Hook, and the Montclair Hawk Lookout is a small sanctuary owned by NJ Audubon. 

Sandy Hook, NJ has had a spring raptor count in place since 1979.  The count is conducted from an observation deck at the north end of peninsula and tallies about 3,000-4,000 hawks per season, as well as many other migrant species of birds.  More information about the Sandy Hook Migration Watch can be viewed here

The Montclair Hawk Lookout began in 1957 and has run annually since.  From an observation point atop the first Watchung Ridge, the site offers an excellent locale from which to observe raptor migration in both spring and fall.  More information about the Montclair Hawk Watch can be viewed here

Visitors are encouraged to drop by and join the hawk watchers as they tally thousands of birds of prey this spring.  These sites are great for birding in general, as well, and one never knows what other avian gems may be found there while scanning the skies.  New Jersey Audubon's All Things Birds has many field trips scheduled for Sandy Hook this spring, including visits to the Migration Watch.  You can see the field trip schedule here

We hope to see you there!

Birding the Morgan Mudflats & South Amboy

The varied habitats of the Morgan/South Amboy area and how to bird them are detailed in this feature by Scott Barnes, Bird Programs Director at New Jersey Audubon.  Scott has been birding here for many years, and details when and what to look for at this urban hotspot.  Many birders visit the site during late winter and spring hoping for rarer gulls, including Little Gull.  Recently an adult Black-headed Gull has made the news from this site, but there is more to explore and view here year-round.

There's a lot of data out there in personal notebooks and field notes not yet entered for the site...here's an open invitation to make the bar chart checklist for the site more complete and up-to-date by entering your personal sightings to NJ eBird! 

You can see the complete Morgan Mudflats checklist here

You can also join the NJ Audubon All Things Birds field trip to South Amboy on Saturday April 21.  To register contact Scherman Hoffman Sanctuary in Bernardsville at 908-766-5787 or scherman-hoffman@njaudubon.org

ID SPOT: Eared vs. Horned Grebes

New Jersey Audubon associate naturalist and NJ Bird Records Committee memeber Tony Leukering has written an essay explaining identification pitfalls and solutions for these two similar grebes.  Late winter/early spring is a great time to see flocks of Horned Grebes as they stage in our coastal bays and estuaries; and to search through them for the rare-but-regular Eared Grebe.  You can join NJ Audubon on organized field trips to areas such as Sandy Hook, South Amboy, Forsythe NWR, and the Cape May Region in upcoming months where we'll be looking for both birds.  See our field trip offerings at the New Jersey Audubon website.   

From the Appalachian Trail to the Wilmington Canyon: The summary of a New Jersey Big Year

Join eBird reviewer Tom Reed as he recounts his successful New Jersey Big Year effort.  2011 will long be remembered as an exceptional year for New Jersey birding, with visiting irruptive species, outstanding pelagic trips, rarities, and the emergence of new technologies that allowed for instantaneous sharing of information about birds. 

Special Events with NJ Audubon in February

Beat the doldrums of mid-winter with two special birding opportunites with New Jersey Audubon.  It may be cold out, but there can often be hot birding for winter species we don't see at other times of the year. Learn from the experts while visiting bird-rich, scenic destinations!

Feb 9-10, 2012: Wintering Hawks, Eagles, & Owls with Pete Dunne and Tom Reed/Cape May Bird Observatory.  Thanks to southern New Jersey's mosaic of prey-rich habitats, 13 diurnal raptors and all 8 NJ species of owls are possible sightings during this workshop.  It's unlikely we'll see all of these species!  You will see other great birds and several of the most beautiful and remote landscapes on the eastern seaboard.  We will learn to find and recognize good wintering hawk and owl habitats.  The workshop features a mix of field time and 1-2 classroom sessions.

Feb 17-20, 2012: New England Van Tour with Scott Barnes and Linda Mack/Sandy Hook, All Things Birds. Coastal New England offers an excellent variety of northern winter birds and beautiful rocky coastlines.  We'll visit famous birding locations including Newburyport, Plum Island, Gloucester Harbor, and Cape Ann in search of eiders, Barrow's Goldeneye, "good gulls," alcids, Northern Shrike, and wintering raptors including Snowy and Short-eared Owls. Previous trips have featured stand-out birds such as Pink-footed Goose, Tufted Duck, Gyrfalcon, Dovekie, Bohemian Waxwing, and Pine Grosbeak. 

Sixty-five Years of Birding in New Jersey

Rich Kane, former Director of Conservation for New Jersey Audubon gives his perspective on 65 years of birding in New Jersey.  Some changes in the state's bird life--both positive and negative--may surprise you.  Read more

Birding the Northern North Shore

The Monmouth County coastline from Sandy Hook south to Asbury Park has been a productive winter birding area in recent years, with the appearance of many interesting and unusual birds.  The area can be birded as an extension of a day begun at the Hook or begun further south along the shore and working one's way north.  An aggressive birder with a full day might possibly work the entire shore from Manasquan Inlet to Sandy Hook.  Birding this northern part of the North Shore could take 2-3 hours by itself.  Read more about how to bird this area in Scott Barnes's site guide.

Introducing New Jersey eBird

New Jersey Audubon is excited to announce the release of New Jersey eBird, an eBird portal specifically tailored to New Jersey. Not only does this website provide a version of eBird with a New Jersey focus, but it will also help to revise and improve the reporting framework for New Jersey Birds. From now on, reporting to New Jersey eBird will be all you need to do to make sure your sightings are available for publication in NJB, as well as a wide range of other uses.

Location! Location! Location!

Exactly where you plot your birding locations on the map is critical for eBird in many ways. When you are specific with your location information we can perform better analyses, and we can ensure that your birding lists are built correctly. eBird thrives on location specificity, and a good general rule of thumb when entering data is that it's always better to enter shorter checklists from more refined locations than longer checklists from a string of unrelated locations. In this article we'll discuss why being as precise as possible with your birding locations yields the best results.

What in the world is "Herring Gull (American)"?

Most species names in eBird are easily found with a glance at your field guide, but eBird also allows entry of a number of other birds (sometimes we call them 'taxa') whose names do not appear in any guides. These break down into three main groups: hybrids, spuhs, and subspecies groups. Hybrids all have the word "hybrid" in the name (e.g., Mallard x Gadwall (hybrid)) and all spuhs either have a "sp." (e.g., scoter sp.) or slash (e.g., Greater/Lesser Scaup) in the name. The subspecies groups, such as "Herring Gull (American)", are more complicated and explained in this article.

Using the eBird Comments Fields

eBird has two comments fields that can be used however you choose. While birders sometimes leave these fields blank, entering submission notes can help make your checklist more valuable. Your comments can assist our eBird reviewers as they try to assess records of rare and unusual birds. By supplying some extra information in your comments you can make your records easier to interpret and make the review process faster. Your eBird data (including comments fields) are also shared with editors of local and regional bird journals, authors of articles and books on bird distribution, state wildlife agencies, and conservationists.

Western hummingbirds in the East--set your feeders out!!

Make Your Checklists More Meaningful!

As the eBird database grows by leaps and bounds, it is becoming ever more valuable.  Your observations are making a huge difference in our understanding of birds at many levels. Our scientists are now analyzing your data to find new patterns in bird distribution, abundance and population trends.  Although every record submitted to eBird is valuable, only observations with effort can be used in these more rigorous analyses, so we would like to promote several bird survey techniques that we consider most valuable in this regard.  Make the most of your birding by conducting traveling counts, stationary counts and area counts in a more meaningful way.  In this feature we'll give examples of how to make your observations count for bird conservation!

Are you really making Casual Observations?

We've noticed at eBird that many observers are choosing the "Casual Observation" methodology when in fact they are actually conducting more rigorous types of surveys while birding. Casual Observations are of limited value because there is little effort information required, which allows them to be used in fewer analyses because we know less about how you went birding. It's important to let us know what kind of effort you put into making your observations. Please read on for a better understanding of the eBird methodology choices, and to learn how to make your data most valuable.

Bird Counting 201

In this second installment of our series on counting birds we'll discuss some approaches to counting more problematic groups of birds including large numbers, moving flocks, and mixed species flocks. How do the hawk counters do it? How should you count that constant stream of Cormorants passing your local headland? How do you go about picking out different species in large flocks of birds. "Birds of a feather flock together!" Well, sometimes, but more often than not we're presented with heterogeneous flocks of birds comprised of many different species. Learning how to look at species ratios within flocks is important, and developing an eye for picking out what is different will help you find that proverbial needle in the haystack that we're all hoping for--a rarity. Armed with the tips in this column we hope you'll improve your ability and begin to enjoy counting birds.

Bird Counting 101

At eBird we encourage you to make your best estimate of bird numbers on every checklist. Your best estimate of numbers is always more useful than putting an "X' to indicate presence. An "X' could be one or it could be a thousand! We can always simplify numbers back to presence/absence for analysis. Your estimates of numbers help us judge relative abundance, and are an important part of checklist data. So what do you do if you're having trouble counting birds? Large flocks of birds are always challenging, and in this article we'll talk about some techniques for estimating numbers so that you can practice and become more proficient at counting birds. This will be the first in a series of articles discussing techniques for counting birds.