Wintering Salt Marsh Birds

     Harbors and salt marshes between barrier islands and the mainland of southern New Jersey, as elsewhere, are alive with several kinds of wintering birds.  Those barrier islands protect the seacoast salt marshes from the constantly pounding surf of the Atlantic Ocean, giving them and the creatures that live in them stability and peace.  But tidal channels penetrate the marshes like the arms of an octopus.  And harbors, channels and marshes are affected by tides twice daily, every day of the year, which has a great influence on the lives of creatures in those habitats.
     Highly visible icons of the winter seacoast, ring-billed, herring and great black-backed gulls commonly winter on harbors, channels, salt marshes, beaches and rock jetties.  There they also catch live fish, mollusks, crustaceans and other sea creatures, as well as scavenge anything edible.
     Bay ducks, which seem to have a common ancestry, including lesser and great scaups, red-heads and canvasbacks, winter on the harbors and channels behind barrier islands.  There these ducks form large rafts of themselves and dive under water to consume aquatic vegetation mostly, and small mollusks and crustaceans to a lesser extent.  Red-heads and cans do have reddish heads.
     Bufflehead ducks also live in rafts on the same waters as bay ducks.  But buffleheads dive under water to mostly bring small crustaceans, snails and other mollusks to the surface to swallow.  In this way, competition for food is lessened between buffleheads and the various bay ducks.         
     White-winged and surf scoter ducks also winter on the harbors.  There each species rafts, and dives under water after blue mussels, clams, crabs and other sea bottom critters.
     Double-crested and great cormorants, common and red-throated loons, horned and red-necked grebes and red-breasted merganser ducks winter on seacoast harbors and channels and dive under water after small fish.  Although these species are of different families of birds, they are all built like ducks because of their watery habitat that shaped them into being what they are.
     Black ducks, Atlantic brant, which is a small goose, and mute swans winter in coastal salt marshes in New Jersey.  All of these related species "tip-up" to pull vegetation from the bottoms of shallow waters with their sturdy beaks.  And they all fly in groups of their own making to fields where they graze on short grass and winter rye shoots, and on waste corn kernels.    
     Wintering northern harriers, which is a type of hawk, and short-eared owls flap and sail buoyantly over salt marshes in their search for rice rats and other small rodents to catch and eat.  Harriers pump low and slowly into the wind while watching and listening for prey.  Short-ears hunt rodents mostly late in the afternoon, at dusk and into the night.  Short-ears fly like giant moths.
     Several kinds of wintering birds leap into action as the tide goes out, leaving large mud flats on the edges of the salt marshes.  Clapper rails, and willits, which are a kind of large sandpiper, come out of the tall grasses to find invertebrates of various kinds in the mud.  Oystercatchers specialize in prying open mollusk shells they find in the mud with their large, heavy beaks.  Savannah sparrows glean wind-blown seeds from the mud.  And flocks of dunlin, which is a sandpiper species, American pipits, horned larks and, sometimes, snow buntings converge on the mud flats to feed on a variety of small invertebrates, and seeds.  All these bird species feed until the tide returns and covers the mud.  Then the birds retreat to the salt marshes to rest and preen their feathers. A merlin or two, which are a kind of hawk, buzz the flats in hopes of catching small birds that are too busy feeding to be aware of their presence.         
     Though seemingly uninhabited at times, winter salt marshes are bursting with animal life, particularly birds.  But sometimes they must be looked for.  However, with a bit of knowledge as to when and where to look for them, most anybody can have success in experiencing wintering birds in salt marshes, from a discreet distance so as to not disturb them.