The day got off to a good start; as soon as, I ventured into the South Garden, I saw yellow warblers, followed by a number of American Redstarts, Hairy Woodpeckers, Carolina Wrens, and Common Yellowthroats. From there, I headed out to the North Garden, where I saw more Redstarts, A Black-and-white warbler and a Blackburnian warbler. I decided to walk the rest of the trail around the West pond back to the visitor’s center. As I got to the center, I deviated off the trail to the South Gardens once again to see if I could see any new action and I did…I saw a Philadelphia Vireo.
During my break for lunch I ran into Lloyd Spitalnik, Cal Vonberger, and Don Riepe who are well known birders and photographers. Cal and Lloyd, indicated that they were heading over to the North end of the East Pond later in the afternoon. Since, I had planned on heading that way I decided to tag along with them. Once at the site, we were told that there was a juvenile Wilson’s Phalarope in the area and so we trekked around the edge of the pond in the mud, in search of the bird. We were in luck, as we came across the subject around Sanderling point. The guys took up their spots and went to work photographing the Wilson’s Phalarope and other subjects. We also, saw a number of White Rumped Sandpipers, Stilt Sandpipers, Lesser Yellow Legs and some Short Billed Dowitchers. On the way out, we got better shots of the Wilson’s Phalarope and also saw Western Sandpipers.
Lloyd and Cal were very down to earth and displayed none of the “air” of know it alls. In fact, Lloyd was really cool in taking his time out to explain how to identify “Stilt Sandpipers”…this was very much appreciated since Shorebirding is relatively new for me. All in all, it was a decent day. Here are some photos that I took from my birding.
Stilt Sandpipers Feeding.
Western Sandpiper.
Western with Stilt Sandpipers.
Juvenile Wilson's Phalarope.
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