On this last day of holiday break, I could not resist the siren song of the red-flanked bluetail, a Eurasian native that has, curiously, been hanging out in a residential neighborhood in South Jersey since early December. It’s the first bird of its kind to be reported in the Eastern states.
My friend Laura texted me this morning to ask if I wanted to go birding. The answer, unhesitatingly, was “yes.”
Laura asked if we should take a shot at finding the red-flanked bluetail about 40 miles from our homes. Why not? How many chances in life will we get to find a bird in New Jersey that is visiting from its normal range between Japan and Finland?
Laura drove us down to Whiting, New Jersey, where we joined a scrum of a dozen other birders standing, squatting and sitting in the side yard of a duplex in a residential development in Ocean County.
We waited about 15 minutes before the bird popped out of the holly and onto a low branch at the edge of the backyard. I squeezed off a few hectic frames, and I submit the better of two fuzzy images herein.
The bird returned to the holly and emerged a short time later to land briefly on the ground. I whiffed on that photo opp, but I was later able to spot the bird through a scope trained on her by a kind fellow birder.
Why the wayward bluetail chose this particular yard about 30 miles inland from the Atlantic coast is a mystery. The bird must have sensed that the residents of the house were bird-friendly. They have several bird feeders and a seed bell hanging from a small tree beside the house, which you can see in the photo topping this post.
Their instructions, posted on their patio, were clear: don’t go past the feeders. The stakeout crowd respected that limit, keeping about 20 feet away from the holly tree in which the bird has been living.
Laura spotted the bluetail through her binoculars and patiently talked me through finding her deep in the holly.
After half an hour or so, Laura and I headed back north, hoping to find another rarity: a black-headed gull that has been palling around with the geese at the Mercer Corporate Park in Allentown, New Jersey.
The lakes there were hosting hundreds of Canada geese plus hooded mergansers and American wigeons. No sign of the rare gull — like the bluetail miles from its normal range — but we did not complain.
We’d seen the bluetail, possibly the only chance we’ll ever have to see one. We were happy.
The Jersey Birder 
Wow! That’s a lot of paparazzi for a bird.
I recently drove to Lake of the Lilies in Point Pleasant Beach to photograph ducks and swans. When I got to the southeastern edge of the lake, I found a couple of other bird photographers already there. We got chatting, and I learned they were on the hunt for a reported sighting of a Eurasian Wigeon.
Meanwhile, I kept myself busy photographing the ‘ordinary’ locals—American Wigeons, Redheads, and Mute Swans. I added 9 more birds to my life list. But then, more people started showing up, all with their lenses trained on the water, hoping for a glimpse of the elusive Eurasian Wigeon.
I ended up staying at the lake for nearly three hours. By the time I left, it seemed like the wigeon had outsmarted us all—no sightings, just a lot of hopeful photographers.
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I need to get over to Lake of the Lillies one of these days.
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