mocosocoBirds

Great Cormorant in Parsippany

Great Cormorant, Parsippany, NJ, Sep. 14, 2013 (digiscoped by Jonathan Klizas).

(Click on the picture for a larger image.)

Anyone who was birding today in the mocosocoBirds region is aware that southbound migrants were dumped on the area as of this morning. Birds were everywhere. Yet, the main story of the day continues to be an innocuous pond in a corporate setting in Parsippany, hereafter known as  Jefferson Road Pond, or better yet, Julie’s Pond. On Monday, September 9, Julie Buechner found a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (YCNH) at the pond. It was seen again on September 10. On September 11, the YCNH continued and Julie found an immature Black-crowned Night-Heron (BCNH). A second juvenile YCNH joined the first on September 12 and the BCNH continued. Both YCNHs continue through today.

What would show up next? Julie answered that question today as she found a juvenile Great Cormorant, rare for Morris County. It was at the north end of the pond and remained there at least until 3 p.m. This is only the second Great Cormorant sighting of the season in all of New Jersey and one of very few south of Maine according to the eBird database. Dare I ask again, what will show up next?

Great Cormorant, Parsippany, NJ, Sep. 14, 2013 (digiscoped by Jonathan Klizas).

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Parsippany, NJ, Sep. 14, 2013 (digiscoped by Jonathan Klizas).

Migrants

Sasso Tract in Rockaway Twp. had multiples of most species including Ovenbird, American Redstart, Northern Parula, Magnolia, Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Blackpoll, Black-throated Green and Canada Wablers, Swainson’s Thrush and Wood Thrush.

It was not difficult to find warblers today. Even while viewing the Great Cormorant in Parsippany, American Redstart, Black-and-white, Chestnut-sided and Canada Warblers were naked-eye observations directly over my head.

Juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron, Parsippany, NJ, Sep. 11, 2013
(photo by Julie Buechner).

The first documented report in 84 years of both Black-crowned and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons appearing in the same place, practically in the same tree, in Morris County occurred today. Julie Buechner found the juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (YCNH) on September 9. Today, she relocated the YCNH and found a juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron, as well. Both Night-Herons can be difficult to spot. A few birders missed them yesterday and today.

In the October, 1929 issue of The Auk (Vol. 46, No. 4, October 1929, pp. 537-538.), Lester L. Walsh of Ridgewood, NJ, describes two separate occasions of viewing a Yellow-crowned Night Heron associating with Black-crowned Night-Herons in, what he calls, the Troy Meadows Swamp. One was an adult seen on June 16, 1929; the other, an immature, on August 5, 1929. To quote Mr. Walsh as he comments on immature Night-Heron field identification of his time: “In this connection it is interesting to mention that several authors have commented on the impossibility of satisfactory field identification of immature birds of these two species. It is my experience, however, that either awing or at rest there are sufficient differences to enable one to make reasonably long range identification with certainty.”

[Editor’s note: I did a double-take when seeing the word “awing” in L.L Walsh’s account. Inspiring awe is the contemporary definition. Of course, Walsh used it in the context of “in flight”. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary of 1913 defines awing as an adverb meaning “On the wing; flying; fluttering.”]