As you can see by the background, today was foggy and not the best seeing conditions for a Christmas Bird Count, but we tried our best! Our highlight today were 2 Black Squirrels (1 pictured.) Black squirrels are a color variation of the Eastern Gray Squirrel, and not a separate species.

Once common in New Jersey, they were extirpated but then reintroduced. I have seen them before in the Princeton area where they are somewhat common, but this was a nice surprise in Spring Lake, NJ at the “Jersey Shore.”