WINTER BIRDS AT BARNEGAT BAY

      Years ago, I wanted a house along Chesapeake Bay, or an inlet off the Atlantic Ocean, so I could see rafts of wintering ducks, geese and gulls bobbing on their waters.  But now I see several kinds of these adaptable birds wintering on Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, through a live camera mounted on an osprey nest and our home computer screen in southeastern Pennsylvania.

     That camera scans a half-mile long, narrow salt marsh along a road on the Barnegat Bay side of a developed New Jersey barrier island between the Atlantic and the bay.  And Barnegat Bay itself is between that barrier island and the Jersey mainland.  That strip of remnant marsh, covered with ten-foot-tall phragmites with lovely, feathery plumes in winter, clumps of grass and shrubs, is interesting to watch by live camera in winter.

     A shallow, freshwater stream flows through that thin marsh and pours into the brackish Barnegat Bay.  Several kinds of water birds, including a variety each of adaptable ducks, geese, gulls and other species, daily drink and bathe in the freshwater.

     Scores of wintering Atlantic brant, a kind of small geese which are barely larger than mallard ducks, are down from their Arctic tundra breeding area.  And those handsome geese are the single most numerous birds drinking from the freshwater stream every day in winter.  Groups of them fly out of island salt marshes in Barnegat Bay, where they pluck and eat vegetation.  They drink and bathe in the stream, then return to their marshes to continue feeding.          

     Black ducks winter in Atlantic Coast salt marshes, where they consume plants and invertebrates.  I've counted as many as 34 black ducks one day in that freshwater waterway where they, too, come to drink and bathe.  

     Around a score each of stately Canada geese and attractive mallard ducks daily come to that fresh stream.  These species, plus a few each of pintail ducks, and green-winged teal, add more beauty and interest to that waterway in the long, lean salt marsh.  

     A few kinds of diving ducks bob on wavelets on Barnegat Bay in winter, including several black and white-patterned buffleheads, and a few each of ruddy ducks, ring-neck ducks, greater scaup and red-breasted mergansers.  The mergansers dive for small fish they catch in their thin, serrated beaks.

     Wintering gulls at Barnegat Bay include ring-billed, herring and the striking great black-backed gulls that have feather patterns nearly like bald eagles.  Great black-backs have black backs and upper wings and white heads and tails like the eagles.  But the gulls have white bellies.  

     Graceful at flying and gliding, and competent swimmers, these gulls all catch smaller fish, but also scavenge anything edible.  One day, on our computer screen, I saw two herring gulls at Barnegat Bay scavenging a dead black duck. 

     Little flocks of dunlin and single greater yellowlegs, both species of sandpipers, roam over the limited mud flats and shallows of that slender, remnant salt marsh along Barnegat Bay, which is highlighted by the live camera.  These wintering sandpipers feed on invertebrates they find in mud.  The yellowlegs, having longer legs, can snare invertebrates they find in mud under inches-deep water.  The small, short-legged dunlin can't get invertebrates in mud under water, which reduces competition for food with the yellowlegs.    

     A few kinds of fish-eating birds wintering along Barnegat Bay are singles, or a few each, of belted kingfishers, great blue herons, black-crowned night herons and tri-colored herons.  These birds add a bit of variety and interest to the thin salt marsh along Barnegat Bay that is highlighted by the live camera.

     Occasionally, I have spotted a wintering northern harrier cruising slowly and gracefully back and forth over the grassy salt marsh in search of rodents.  They are a joy to watch pumping into the wind, while watching the ground carefully for those potential victims.  Occasionally, one will drop to the ground in hopes of catching furry prey.  

     Though this thin salt marsh on a Jersey barrier island is limited in size, it is big in seeing adaptable salt marsh and salt water birds in the midst of human activities.  And the live camera spots much of the interesting bird activities in that marsh.  

       

       


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