Plan B

The New Jersey Rare Bird Alert for this week was not very promising. My best shot at a lifer bird was a Le Conte's Sparrow that ws seen up in Leonia, but the report was already two days old. Not very promising, but I decided to give it a shot since I was familiar with the area and knew about another site just down the road in Ridgefileld, where I would find one specific species. Today, Plan A was to chase the Le Conte's Sparrow, Plan B was to visit this Ridgefield site. The directions to the Leonia site were great, and there were plenty of sparrows in the area. I identified six species (mostly song & swamps) and had some very quick glimpses of plenty other sparrows, 1 glimpse may have been my target. Unfortunately, both a Red-tailed Hawk and a Northern Harrier were also actively hunting in the area, so most sparrows didn't pop up for a decent look. After about an hour of fruitless searching, I decided it was time for Plan B - Monk Parakeets. Although the Monk Parakeet has been breeding in New Jersy for years, it wasn't until earlier this year that it officially was added to the New Jersey State List, and I had not previously seen this species here in New Jersey. However, since I've seen this species previously in other states, I was never worried that I was going to miss it today. Especially since I knew that unlike most parrots, the Monk Parakeet builds a colonial nest, that they occupy all year. So if you know where there is a colony, finding a Monk Parakeet is about as difficult as finding a Canada Goose on a New Jersey golf course. I drove up to site, parked my car, located the nest and with one parakeet peeking out. The bird flew up to a wire, started calling and was shortly joined by another 4 parakeets.