QAS Barnegat Lighthouse New Jersey State Park trip - Feb 25th - part 1

Here is a recap of our annual trip to Barnegat Lighthouse to see the Harlequin Ducks and Purple sandpipers. Barnegat is one of the few places where you can reliably see both of these species annually.

Walking out Jetty..looking back toward lighthouse

Our group of four met at 6am at my home to begin the 3-1/2 hour drive. The weather was looking like it was going to cooperate - with temps getting into the upper 60's F and no rain forecast until later in the afternoon. The drive was uneventful, and after a brief stop for a quick breakfast, we arrived at our destination around shorty before 10am.

Barnegat Lighthouse

When we arrived there was a light fog in the area, that the sun was burning off. As in other years, we where greeted in the parking lot by a host of gulls...including Ring-Billed, Herring and Greater Blacked Backed - 3 species to start.

As we gathered our gear for the walk out the jetty, we added several more common species....crows and grackles to name a few.

The Jetty

As we walked toward the lighthouse and the jetty - we scanned the inlet and soon enough found our first waterfowl species of the day....a Red-Throated Loon, actually several of them, quickly followed by several Long-tailed Ducks and a few Common Loon - our count was growing.

Red Throated Loon

The weather could not have been better (it's usually below freezing with wind chills making it feel much colder on the jetty)...but not today...temps where in the mid 50's and climbing making the walk out the jetty actually enjoyable.

About half way out the mile long jetty, we encountered out first target species for the day...Purple Sandpipers. They where mixed in the a group of Ruddy Turnstones and the light was prefect...allowing for almost prefect viewing conditions of both species.

Purple sandpiper

Ruddy Sandstones & Purple Sandpipers

We continue our walk, and within a short distance spotted another target species.. the Harlequin Ducks. Again the light was great and afforded us some great views of this delightful species. There was a total of 14 Halequins Ducks seen for the day...a high single day count for me.

Harlequin Ducks 

As the fog returned, we reached the end of the jetty, and ask a group fo other birders if the recently reported King Eider had been spotted today. As was expected, with the fog, it had not been.We decided to spend some time at the end of the jetty, in hopes that the fog would lift.

Lots of Dunlin

As we waited, we did tally some Sanderling, Black Scoters, Surf Scoters and several Common Eiders...but no King Eider.

Common Eider

The fog never lifted and after about 1 hour we started our walk back toward the parking area....ending up with a  total of 23 species.

After a quick snack, we headed for our next destination, was Brigantine NWR about an hours to the south. Check the next post for details on this part of the trip.

Until Next time - good birding.