Eastern birds in the West (1 Viewer)

I came across a Western Grebe on the NJ coastline not far from Sandy Hook. I only found one photo (on the internet)of this type bird in NY not NJ. So how common is it for birds to be so far off course.?

The subject of "how rare is X species in Y location" is a massive one and it's nearly impossible to generalize. What is easy to say is that the majority of off-course birds probably never get seen by humans. Additionally, if you live along a coast, on an island that is in a migration corridor, or near a desert oasis, you're going to find more wayward birds than if you live inland in a huge patch of homogenous landscape (whether that homogenous landscape is Nevada sagebrush desert; Kansas farmland; Ohio mixed woods, subdivisions, and agriculture; or the middle of the Amazon forest).

For specific information related more to New York and New Jersey, there may well be published data but I wouldn't know. The state bird records committees should hopefully at least have web pages with some info, and eBird should be able to show you a subset of records with an bias towards recent records as eBird is a younger dataset.

Ethanhawk said:

I came across a Western Grebe on the NJ coastline not far from Sandy Hook. I only found one photo (on the internet)of this type bird in NY not NJ. So how common is it for birds to be so far off course.?

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Specifically on Western Grebe in New Jersey, illustrated checklist for New Jersey here:-

https://ebird.org/region/US-NJ/media?yr=all&m=

Photos of Western Grebes in New Jersey here:-

https://ebird.org/media/catalog?reg...=wesgre&mediaType=Photo&sort=rating_rank_desc

All the best

Ethanhawk said:

I came across a Western Grebe on the NJ coastline not far from Sandy Hook. I only found one photo (on the internet)of this type bird in NY not NJ. So how common is it for birds to be so far off course.?

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There have been numerous reports of Western Grebe in New Jersey in the past.

Are you sure that it was a Western Grebe though? There are recent reports of both Horned Grebe and Red-necked Grebe at Sandy Hook, but no reports of Western Grebe.

Remember, they will be in non-breeding plumage now.