I'm going to be down here in New Jersey for a week or so, spending some time with friends and family. I will also be visiting all the "patches" in my old 'hood, and maybe chase a rarity or two to pad the state list. I'll report back on occasion.

Yesterday, on the way down, a stop at Fort Foster in Kittery produced the first Killdeer of spring. It's early, but not unbelievably so considering the lack of snowcover. I also tallied 26 Red-tailed Hawks along the drive from Pownal to Bridgewater, NJ.

Today, I visited Duke Island Park. It's a strip of ball fields and woodlands sandwiched between the Raritan River and the Delaware-Raritan Canal. It's just a few minutes from my Dad's house, so it's a place I frequent when I visit. Interestingly, I never spent much time birding there when I lived down here, but now it functions as a convenient place to reacquaint myself with the Central NJ avifauna.

Hundreds of the ubiquitous resident Canada Geese grazed in the fields, while dozens of Dark-eyed Juncos foraged at the woodland edges. The woods here have been absolutely ravaged by the overpopulation of White-tailed Deer, but the understory does support enough Japanese Honeysuckle and other invasives that deer ignore to support a healthy population of Carolina Wrens - many of which were singing today. A couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers were in the trees, and a pair of Eastern Bluebirds foraged along the canal. A few Common Mergansers and Common Goldeneyes joined the geese and Mallards in the river. Duke Island Park is certainly a place to get one's Red-bellied Woodpecker fix; they're very common here.

Here's the list from an hour and a half this morning:
Canada Goose
American Black Duck
Mallard
Common Goldeneye
Common Merganser
Great Blue Heron
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Chickadees (I don't bother to identify chickadees in Central NJ due to rampant hybridization between Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees in the area)
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Common Grackle
House Finch
American Goldfinch