Thursday, May 23, 2019

Weekend Wanderings ... Manahawkin Wildlife Management Area

The morning of the Whitesbog BioBlitz found Patty and I birding elsewhere. Where "elsewhere" was the Manahawkin WMA.


It is a 'wild' place, although we did hear the sounds of traffic nearby, and the trail started out wide and obvious.


But this was not always the case.


The trail also started out relatively bird-less.


So we looked at flowers.


And trees ...

... like this one, a bit past its prime.


But sure enough we would see birds. Like this Gray Catbird.


And this early bird (American Robin) having breakfast.


Eventually we exited the woodland part of the WMA to the back bay section.


We saw some lingering Blue-winged Teal.


An Osprey with a small fish.


And a singing Willow Flycatcher. It was good that it was singing as it is near impossible to identify flycatchers by sight alone.


But a big reason one goes birding in May is to see warblers. Like this female ...


... and male Yellow Warblers. Yellows were everywhere this morning, their song our soundtrack for the duration.


Common Yellowthroats were also rather common.

We saw and heard several other warbler species, either up in canopy, deep in the foliage, or just too active to get usable images. A reason to go back perhaps.


On the way out we saw this seemingly newly hatched butterfly which I think is a Spicebush Swallowtail.

A nice way to start what would be a very long day.

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