Marsh Birds - Brigantine

The recent day trip to Brigantine yielded my first photos of the Gull-billed Tern, a regular but uncommon summer resident in Forsythe NWR ...

Gull-billed Tern

Forster's Terns were not very cooperative as they fished the channels, usually choosing to give me backlight or their backside, but this one grabbed a worm out of the mud and I grabbed a photo ...

Forster's Tern

The bubbling energy of wrens always engages me, none more so than the Marsh Wren. Notice that this one is wearing jewelry ...

Marsh Wren

Wrens are "troglodytes" - cave dwellers. There were at least two newly made "caves" in the vicinity of the singing male ...

Marsh Wren nest

I wonder why this hen Mallard had only one duckling following her. Did her eggs not hatch? Had a predator taken eggs? Or had predators taken the young ducklings?

Mallard hen with her lone duckling

Willets are common nesting shorebirds along the coast, their "pee-will-willet" carrying over the marsh grasses ...

Willet

In a post early this spring, I said that one goal for this season was to capture the Red-winged Blackbird showing his epaulets in all their glory. This gentleman cooperated magnificently ...

Red-winged Blackbird

Good birding!!