{"id":2242,"date":"2014-01-20T21:04:05","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T02:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=2242"},"modified":"2014-01-21T05:56:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T10:56:20","slug":"barnegat-lighthouse-state-park-life-bird-bonanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=2242","title":{"rendered":"Barnegat Lighthouse State Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Harlequin Ducks were just amazing – gorgeous birds. Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was fortunate enough to be invited to join what I call “the New Jersey Crew” on an outing this past Sunday to Barnegat Lighthouse State Park<\/a>. The “crew” includes: Judy Cinquina, Tom Millard, Denis Farrell, B.A. McGrath, Gene Tappan, \u00a0and honorary New Jerseyan, Dennis Murphy. I really enjoy birding with these folks because they are all very good and experienced birders that are extremely generous with me, taking the time to teach me the ins and outs of birding, bird identification, and birding locations. Plus they are all just nice people to spend time with.<\/p>\n

\"Dennis<\/a>
Dennis Murphy, Gene Tappan, Judy Cinquina, and Denise Farrell go to work at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I cannot express strongly enough what a great birding location Barnegat is. As soon as we got on the beach, until it was time to leave, there was ALWAYS a large number of birds to observe. Additionally, while some of the birds were a bit distant, most birds were quite close and gave great views. It was a super day for photography with so many birds near and far and the light was beautiful. For me, the icing on the cake was the fact that six (!!!) of the over 30 species that we had for the day were life birds: HARLEQUIN DUCK, COMMON EIDER, PURPLE SANDPIPER, ICELAND GULL, CAROLINA CHICKADEE,<\/strong> and BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I took tons of photos and I was happy with many of them:<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This Iceland Gull was probably my favorite bird of the day. It was a life bird for me, and I think it is a very elegant looking gull. The New Jersey Crew was having a discussion about this bird, wondering if it could possibly be a hybrid. The reason for this was that it was very close in size to the Herring Gulls it was found with. According to The Crossley ID Guide, the Iceland is 22″ as compared to the Herring Gull at 25″. The Iceland Gull was certainly smaller, just not noticeably.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"It<\/a>
It was great to finally get the Purple Sandpipers. Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ruddy<\/a>
Ruddy Turnstone at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Here's<\/a>
Here’s a nice look at female Harlequin Duck, Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I was fighting a backlit situation for this Common Eider, so not a great shot, but what an interesting duck. Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I can’t get enough of these Long-tailed Ducks. Definitely the cutest duck out there. Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
One more Long-tailed Duck at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Male<\/a>
Male Harlequin Duck at Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, 1\/19\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After Barnegat Lighthouse State Park, we made a quick stop at the “Bridge to Nowhere”, which is basically small road (Stafford Avenue) that ends in a destroyed bridge. It also borders along the Manahawkin Wildlife Management Area<\/a>. It was here that I got my life Carolina Chickadee and Boat-tail Grackles.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My life Carolina Chickadee, at Manahawkin Wildlife Management Area. While it looks very much like our Black-capped Chickadee, there are some differences, the most notable being their call. It is the same “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” but much more rapid than the Black-capped Chickadee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What a fabulous day of birding, with great company and tons of great birds. Hard to ask for anything more than that.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3743\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was fortunate enough to be invited to join what I call “the New Jersey Crew” on an outing this past Sunday to Barnegat Lighthouse State Park. The “crew” includes: Judy Cinquina, Tom Millard, Denis Farrell, B.A. McGrath, Gene Tappan, \u00a0and honorary New Jerseyan, Dennis Murphy. I really enjoy birding with these folks because they … Continue reading “Barnegat Lighthouse State Park”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-Aa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2242"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2263,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242\/revisions\/2263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}