A good start to the year yesterday.
Birds
1. Australian Wood Duck
2. Pacific Black Duck
3. Hardhead
4. Australian Grebe
5. Crested Pigeon
6. Pacific Koel
7. Dusky Moorhen
8. Eurasian Coot
9. Australasian Swamphen
10. Masked Lapwing
11. Little PIed Cormorant
12. Little Black Cormorant
13. Australian White Ibis
14. Little Corella
15. Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
16. Red-rumped Parrot
17. Superb Fairy Wren
18. Noisy Miner
19. Striated Pardalote
20. Australian Magpie
21. Willie Wagtail
22. Australian Reed Warbler
23. Little Grassbird
24. Welcome Swallow
25. Common (Indian) Mynah
26. Laughing Kookaburra
27. Satin Bowerbird
28. Bell Miner
29. Channel-billed Cuckoo
30. Long-billed Corella
31. Rainbow Lorikeet
32. White-browed Scrubwren
33. Brown Thornbill
34. Australasian Figbird
35. Grey Butcherbird
36. White-winged Chough
37. European Blackbird
Hix
BirdsBirds
339. Barred Owl Strix varia
Not sure why I marked that species as a lifer, but alright. A few more incidental sightings from the past week or so.1/23/24
79. House finch Haemorhous mexicanus
Total Species: 107
Birds: 79
Mammals: 6
Reptiles: 5
Fish: 17
Heck yeah
19) House Sparrow Passer domesticus
~Thylo
Finally have a new car! While this didn't do my savings account any favors, it has allowed me to finally get back outdoors. I had a few ideas on where I was going to go birding first, including both regular spots as well as a mini-trip to the Rhode Island coast to pick up some overwintering coastal species. I also considering making another go at the Western Flycatcher that was in RI but I found out it disappeared only a couple weeks ago after over a month. In the end I did something completely different and ended up twitching the State's third record of a very lost warbler.
But first, two species I've picked up on the road since my last update:
20) White-Throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis
21) Fish Crow Corvus ossifragus
Knox Preserve (Avalonia Land Conservancy)
22) Hooded Merganser Lophodytes cucullatus
23) American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus
24) Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia
25) Red-Bellied Woodpecker Melanerpes carolinus
26) Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus
27) Common Raven Corvus corax
28) Hermit Warbler Setophaga occidentalis
29) Common Loon Gavia immer
30) Black-Capped Chickadee Poecile atricapillus
31) Red-Breasted Merganser Mergus serrator
Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center
32) Downy Woodpecker Dryobates pubescens
33) White-Breasted Nuthatch Sitta carolinensis
~Thylo
BirdsBirds
330. American White Pelican Pelecanus erythrorhynchos
331. Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus
332. Sharp-shinned Hawk Accipiter striatus
MammalsBirds
323. Red-breasted Nuthatch Sitta canadensis
Mammals
32. American Red Squirrel Tamiasciurus hudsonicus
My update begins yesterday as I saw a lone waterfowl species standing on a rock while I was driving along the Passaic River.As I left my house this morning, I saw a Hairy Woodpecker scanning my small Cherry Blossom Tree (it did not appear to be impressed.)
Birds
36) Hairy Woodpecker (Leuconotopicus villosus)
Total:
Mammals- 5
Birds- 36
Herptiles- 0
Heard-only Species- 2
The first one in Bergen County since 2006? If so, very nice, but I haven't seen any King Rails on ebird north of Maryland. Virginia Rail, perhaps?40) King Rail (Rallus elegans)
Looking at the pictures of it again I think you’re right, although I think it’s a bit to colored to be a rail of any sorts. It honestly looks something like an American Bittern, which was my first assumption which I nearly put in, only changing it at the last minute. I was reluctant to put that, and still am due to its wintering range being 70-100 miles south. I think that due to this, I’ll just not count this species.The first one in Bergen County since 2006? If so, very nice, but I haven't seen any King Rails on ebird north of Maryland. Virginia Rail, perhaps?