Taste of Spring

Today was a great day to be out and about in New Jersey.  We hopped into the car this morning and headed up the shore.  We were not in search of anything in particular but as usual we had our binoculars and cameras in tow.  We headed up through Wall Township on Rt 35 and came across the bridge entering Belmar.  It was such a glorious sight to see wintering swans on the water.  I am sure there are more than a hundred although we did not take the time to count.  We saw lots of gulls none very remarkable and of course brant and Canada geese.  In among the geese and brant were scattered mallards, black ducks, bufflehead and red breasted merganzers.  They were all really just a bit too far out to photograph so we continued northeast through Belmar and found a couple of good viewing spots near the Shark River inlet.  There were not many birds there today but we did see one peep - probably a purple sandpiper on the rocks.

 

We doubled back to what I think was Silver Lake. Driving along the lake's edge we saw a flock of robins foraging for holly berries and one even pulled out a worm.  They were in beautiful plumage their red breasts afire against the dull drab grass of winter. 

On that same lake we found one section that was not frozen and in the open water there were a number of ducks and geese feeding.  Because the only water open was very near the shore we got excellent looks at three northern shovelers, a couple of coots,  gadwall and widgeon.  I have never seen a northern shoveler up so close.  He was displaying his blue wing feathers and I was able to get a picture.  They did not seem bothered by our presence. 

We traveled on around the lake and found a flock of gadwall feeding .  Mostly I was able to photograph only the duck butts as they dabbled for food.  But it made an interesting picture.