Loons are large aquatic birds that are seen in high numbers off of the New Jersey coast throughout the winter. These beautiful birds are very showy in their breeding plumage, but could be considered fairly plain in the winter. I was able to get a bunch of decent photo ops with Loons during a recent trip to the Barnegat jetty and Manasquan Inlet.
Common Loon at Manasquan Inlet
In Europe they are known as Divers. The name “diver” makes a lot of sense when you normally see this bird – they swim low on the surface of the water then quickly dive under to catch fish, crabs and other small animals. The name “loon” refers to the bird’s poor ability to walk on land, something that you hopefully will not see!
Common Loon at Barnegat
Two different species can be commonly found along the New Jersey coast, The large Common Loon and the smaller Red-throated Loon.
Common Loon
The more-dainty Red-throated Loon
You can easily see the differences in the photos – the Red-throated Loon has a smaller, up-turned bill and more white around the throat and up the cheeks. Both species come in a variety of plumages themselves. I did not get a good variety of cooperative Red-throated Loons during this trip, but I did photograph many individual Common Loons.
It’s always fun to try to get them as they are diving. Last week, I finally caught one kissing the water. Of course, I am always looking for that better shot…
Kissing the water
About to go for the dive
Mid-dive
When they emerge from the water, they may or may not come up with a lucky catch. I am still trying to capture the perfect moment of a Loon and its meal. For now, I have a few mediocre photos of lunch.
Common Loon with a fairly large crab
Down goes the crab
Red-throated Loon downing a large fish
Common Loon Eating shellfish
A small meal for this Common Loon
In a couple of weeks, the Common Loons will be more in breeding plumage. I was able to photograph this in previous years and hope to see them transitioning again this year.
Common Loon transitioning to breeding plumage in 2014
Unfortunately, Red-throated Loons do not make the same transition while in the area and molt after migration. It’s still great to see them every winter!
I think I have an addiction. It is called Barnegat Light. This gem of a place has brought me five excellent trips since my first time going there in November. We had two goals this trip: find Piping Plovers and give my friend, Teri, the Barnegat experience. This trip was suppose to happen last weekend, but the weather did not cooperate and the east coast had heavy rains. This weekend, however, it was warm and the sun was shining.
Barnegat Lighthouse from the jetty
We were greeted by one of the most beautiful waterfowl – the Long-tailed Duck. They were beginning to enter into breeding plumage, something that I have not seen yet.
Female Long-tailed Duck in transitional plumage
Another first for me were Laughing Gulls in breeding plumage. I’ve only ever seen them in the fall. They stayed away from the jetty.
Distant Laughing Gull in breeding plumage
Bird-wise, it started out very quiet. The jetty looked empty and we could not see birds in the water. This could have been due to the very high winds which caused massive waves in the inlet.
High waves across the Barnegat inlet
We left the jetty and went onto the beach to look for Piping Plovers along the fenced off breeding grounds. Still nothing. We finally spotted two birds.
American Oystercatchers near a high tide pool
American Oystercatchers! It seemed like they didn’t want to move, so we made our way closer to them and dropped as low as we could go for some photos. After reviewing the photos on the computer, I noticed something special – the blowing sand was visible in our photos. The three of us had no idea we captured this!
American Oystercatcher surrounded by blowing sand
After this treat, the birds came moving in. A large flock of shorebirds zipped past and landed on the jetty.
Mixed flock of Dunlin, Sanderlings and Purple Sandpipers
We made our way back up on the rocks and snapped away at Dunlin, Purple Sandpipers and Sanderlings. These birds gave us some great photo ops!
Dunlin with a Sanderling in the background
Sanderlings
Purple Sandpiper closeup
That is when we started to see an over-whelming numbers of birds. Adult male Surf Scoters, Loons, Cormorants, Long-tailed Ducks in breeding plumage – it was difficult to concentrate on one bird.
Surf Scoter off the jetty
Long-tailed Ducks, including adult males in both breeding and winter plumage
Great Cormorant after defending a fish from Gulls
Red-throated (non-breeding) and Common (breeding) Loons
And then we spotted Barnegat’s staple wintering bird, the Harlequin Duck.
Harlequin Ducks were still present
The males were getting very feisty now that it is closer to breeding season.
Harlequin Duck chase
They were trying to attract this beautiful girl.
Female Harlequin Duck
We made our way back up the jetty, chasing more Harlequins and looking for new birds. A young Cormorant followed us, but every time we would point our cameras at him, he would dive.
Cormorant making a dive
I did manage to get a nice photo of him though.
Immature Double-crested Cormorant
We ran into our shorebird flock multiple times. They would stay perched until the waves hit the rocks hard.
Shorebird flock getting hit with waves
The waves were just getting worse as we made our way to the end. I stopped a bit early, anticipating wet rocks (and wet camera?) and my friends started their way further up.
High waves along the beach
They changed their minds too and headed back toward me. We could see many birds in the distance – Northern Gannets, many Scoters, tons of Long-tailed Ducks, possible Eiders… too bad we could not get close enough!
A very distant Gannet
We headed back up the jetty, once again, chasing the Harlequins for photos of them on the rocks. I never did get that op this time by, but still got nice photos of them.
Drake Harlequin Duck
We saw other good birds on the way back toward the lighthouse.
Black-bellied Plover in winter plumage
Common Loon in breeding plumage
We then went back onto the beach to look for the Piping Plovers. Unfortunately, it was probably a bit too windy for them and we did not see any. Now that I see the moving sand in some of my photos, I know why a small bird would want to stay away.
Searching for Piping Plovers
On our way back up the beach, we ran into four very cooperative Brant and I got my best photos of them. It was nice getting down at eye level rather than shooting them from above on the jetty!
Some Brant swimming in one of the tidal pools
Even though we dipped on the Plover, it was still a great day of birding. We were able to achieve the most important goal of the trip – introduce a new person to Barnegat and, in the process, get her hooked to it!
