Today I caught up with one of my very good birding friends, Evan, and Nick, a friend of his visiting from NYC. We enjoyed birding the still-fairly-rural western Central Joisey counties of Hunterdon and Warren.

We began at Evan’s local patch, Cold Brook Preserve in Oldwick. A couple of overwintering adult White-crowned Sparrows were good birds, and multiple singing and courting, vividly blue Eastern Bluebirds were simply delightful to watch against a vivid blue sky. Poking around a few weedy fields and corn stubble patches in the area produced the usual cast of characters, including a few small flocks of American Tree Sparrows. A small farm pond held some Ring-necked Ducks and an American Coot. Rising Turkey Vultures, a few Black Vultures, and scattered pairs of courting Red-tailed Hawks filled the skies.

Unlike Maine, Common Ravens are rather rare birds in New Jersey, especially outside of the extreme northwestern corner. Therefore, when one called from a tree directly above our car as we stopped to watch a Turkey Vulture waddle off of a raccoon roadkill we were most surprised. Common Ravens are slowly expanding south and east into NJ, but it was not too long ago when I chased my “state bird” – the first nest in decades in the state that appeared on a communications tower near High Point State Park (and the park’s dumpsters were the backup location to find them!).

Certainly a highlight of the morning was a flock of about 5,000 blackbirds that we encountered on a small country road. Small fields on both sides of the road were literally paved in black; we estimated about 2,000 Common Grackles, 2,000 Brown-headed Cowbirds, and 1,000 Red-winged Blackbirds, along with a handful of European Starlings. We attempted to sift through the masses with a fine-toothed comb to look for rarities, but the flock was consistently on the move. Evan did pick out a female Yellow-headed Blackbird – a major rarity in the state – but I missed it. (Nick got a brief look).

Our next stop, Merrill Creek Reservoir (my third visit here in the past 2 weeks) held “only” about 10,000 Snow Geese (up to 50,000 have been reported recently), but the 4 Redheads continued, and an adult Red-shouldered Hawk soared overhead. One of the adult Bald Eagles peered out over the edge of it’s nest.

One Horned Lark was singing at the Alpha Grasslands, which we stopped at to kill some time while waiting for the light to improve at Merrill. We drove some rural roads looking for goose and blackbird flocks, but seeing little, we made a quick stop back at Merrill Creek to enjoy the Snow Geese some more, and the other waterfowl, including Common Mergansers, Canada Geese, Common Goldeneye, Ring-necked Ducks, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, Green-winged Teal, and a single American Wigeon.

One last stop at Spruce Run Reservoir on the way home produced a smattering of Common Mergansers, but few gulls were roosting on the ice in early afternoon.

White-crowned Sparrows, Common Raven, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Redhead: not a bad day list for early March in NJ. The state has some great birding that’s for sure – now if only there weren’t so many PEOPLE around here!