Browser-sync [proxy error] ECONNREFUSED on initial load ONLY - gulp

Question

I am getting a really weird behaviour with my gulp and browser-sync setup.
When I run my gulp serve task the gulp task runs and build everything and opens the web browser, it just stays there spinning. I go to check the console and I'm getting this error.
[gulp-bs] Watching files...
[gulp-bs] [proxy error] connect ECONNREFUSED
Mongoose connected to mongodb://localhost/<database name>
Now what is interesting is when I go and hit that URL with the browser bar to load the application, everything loads properly.
Why does it happen only the first time but subsequent reloading the browser URL works?
I can't seem to figure out what is causing this error, I don't want to keep reloading the browser after the initial load.
My gulp setup for browser-sync is shown below:
"gulp": "^3.9.0",
"browser-sync": "^2.7.13"
The function is called from a nodemon gulp-task.
function serve(isDev) {
var options = {
script: config.nodeServer,
delayTime: 1,
env: {
"PORT": config.port,
"NODE_ENV": isDev ? "dev" : "production"
}
};
$.nodemon(options)
.on("restart", function(ev) {
log("*** nodemon restarted.");
log("files changed on restart: " + ev);
setTimeout(function() {
browserSync.notify("Reloading now...");
browserSync.reload({
stream: false
});
}, config.browserReloadDelay);
})
.on("start", function() {
log("*** nodemon started.");
startBrowserSync(isDev);
})
.on("crash", function() {
log("*** nodemon crashed due to unexpected reason(s).");
})
.on("exit", function() {
log("*** nodemon exited successfully!.");
});
}
Browser-sync function:
function startBrowserSync(isDev) {
log("*** Starting browser sync");
if (browserSync.active || args.nosync) {
return;
}
if (isDev) {
gulp.watch([config.styles], ["styles"])
.on("change", function(event) {
changeEvent(event);
});
gulp.watch([config.js], ["wiredep"])
.on("change", function(event) {
changeEvent(event);
});
} else {
gulp.watch([config.styles, config.js, config.html], ["optimize", browserSync.reload])
.on("change", function(event) {
changeEvent(event);
});
}
var options = {
proxy: "localhost:" + config.port,
port: 8000,
files: isDev ? [
config.client + "**/*.*",
"!" + config.styles,
config.css + "**/*.css"
] : [],
ghostMode: {
clicks: true,
scroll: true,
location: false,
forms: true
},
injectChanges: true,
logFileChanges: true,
logLevel: "debug",
logPrefix: "gulp-bs",
notify: true,
reloadDelay: 1,
};
browserSync(options);
}
The config.port value is set to 3000 read from a configuration file.