Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Early birding catches the worm at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge?

In my case, it was early birding results in at least 2 hours of birding before the rain. I got a call from my friend Don Riepe on Friday night, reminding me of an Audubon NYC walk that was scheduled to take place on Saturday. Strangely, that walk was not on my schedule, but I offered to make the necessary adjustments and be there to help out with the walk. The event was scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM; for me that was too late, and so I was hitting the West Pond Trail at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge around 7:30 AM. I am glad that I did because I got in a good 2 hours of birding while there was no rain. I did not pick up much; however, I had two nice birds in Black-billed Cuckoo and Gull Billed Tern. The walk, which was attended by about 15 hardy birders, did not last long as rain moved in and put a damper on things half an hour into the trek. Don, being the good sport that he is, decided to do a slide show to those who had braved the weather elements to be at the refuge. I am sure the participants appreciated his kind gesture. After the slide show, I went over to Don’s and hung out for a bit doing some volunteer work for the American Littoral Society. During that time I was able to photograph Egor The Great Egret that has become quite a regular visit to Don’s house. Tags: ,

Total species seen: 32
  1. American Crow
  2. American Redstart
  3. Black-billed Cuckoo
  4. Black-crowned Night-Heron
  5. Brandt
  6. Brown Thrasher
  7. Brown-headed Cowbird
  8. Canada Goose
  9. Clapper Rail
  10. Common Tern
  11. Double Crested Cormorant
  12. Forster's Tern
  13. Glossy Ibis
  14. Gray Catbird
  15. Great Blue Heron
  16. Great Egret
  17. Gull Billed Tern
  18. House Finch
  19. House Wren
  20. Laughing Gull
  21. Least Tern
  22. Mallard
  23. Northern Cardinal
  24. Northern Mockingbird
  25. Osprey
  26. Red-winged Blackbird
  27. Ring-billed Gull
  28. Snowy Egret
  29. Song Sparrow
  30. Tree Swallow
  31. Willet
  32. Yellow Warbler
  33. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
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