Briefly, for birders
The (elusive) dark-eyed junco. Image via eku.edu.
Birder John Beetham blogged about this year’s Raritan Estuary Christmas Bird Count today, a day after scouting birds along a section of the Raritan River in Highland Park and Piscataway with his mom and sister. He’s gone for the past several years, and says this year the numbers of many species seemed down.
Beetham reported “record lows” among song sparrows, white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos, but saw two new species on the count: a green-winged teal duck and brown-headed cowbird. For a list of his sightings, read his post here.
There are still a few Christmas Bird Counts coming up this week: One in Elmer on Wednesday, the Hudson Shelf Pelagic count on Friday (Belmar), a Somerset County count and another in Long Branch on Saturday and a count in Barnegat on Sunday. Click here for more information, including contact names and numbers.
January 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am
i am lucky here in boonton township – we have no shortage of dark-eyed juncos! haven’t seen so many sparrows on our feeders lately, but we do have one adorable brown wren and about 20 other varieties of birds. we love our birds.