ML616159323

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

*Submitted to NJDEP's NJ Wildlife Tracker. Appears to be a new historical high, statewide even, for the period after the 19th Century. See excerpt below in the second attached reference from the book, Endangered And Threatened Wildlife of New Jersey (Beans and Niles, 2003). Counting was made easier, by Friday's partial mowing of the grasslands. Minimum of ten adult males and fourty-six brown birds. Birds rose from roost 0612 (18 minutes before sunrise) to 0658 (28 minutes after sunrise). By sunrise (0630), fourty-four of the birds had already risen from roost. Approximately 80% of the birds dispersed abroad, while 20% or so lingered in the area, ground-hunting the stubble field, west of the NW quadrant of the grasslands. This is an exact count. No bird was added, unless I was 100% sure, it was new. It is possible that there are now closer to sixty birds present. The historical winter roost high count was 50 birds on 1/28/90 (Rich Kane), see first attached reference to the book, Birds of New Jersey (Walsh, Elia, Kane, and Halliwell; 1999). This count surpasses that and the previous site high on eBird of 40 birds, on 3/10/90, by Greg Hanisek. As I have noted in previous checklists, afternoon and especially midday counts have proven futile. For example, I could only confidently enter fifteen birds, Friday afternoon (3/1/24). A theory for this phenomenon can be found in my 2/13/24 and 2/26/24 checklists, see links below. 2/13/24 checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S161446419 2/26/24 checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S162978203 Post-season reflection: Numbers built from five birds around Thanksgiving to twenty-one on New Year's Day. Twenty-one birds were counted again in early February. This wintering population was augmented by arriving nortbound migrants starting in mid-February and peaked in early March. I was not motivated enough, to see when the roost finally dried up. By 3/25/24, the roost was down to twenty-seven birds.

Technical information

Model

SM-A136U

ISO

25

Focal length

4 mm

Flash

Flash fired

f-stop

f/1.8

Shutter speed

16663/1000000 sec

Dimensions

3056 pixels x 3056 pixels

Original file size

2.44 MB