Sunday hike at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge Queens NY...

It was around 8:15 AM, when I pulled into the parking lot at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens NY. A flash of yellow immediately caught my eye and I observed a couple of Yellow Warblers chasing each other through the Bayberry Shrubs around the visitor’s center. Ah…Spring love. Gathering my gear, I headed to the West Pond trail, briefly stopping to check the log book to see what had been reported. There was already an entry for the day indicating the presence of a Mourning Warbler and Gull Billed Terns. As I walked along the trail, I heard the sounds of “fitz-bew” indicating Willow Flycatchers were about. Around bench 1, I heard a Clapper Rail, but could not see over the overgrown shrubs to track the location. Out on the West pond were the familiar assortment of birds; I carefully scanned the far shores looking for anything unusual, but came up empty. As I rounded bench 3, I heard the sounds of peeps and observed a nice congregation assembling around the mud flats off of Terrapin trail. I headed in that direction and once there, I scanned the flock and found, Semipalmated Sandpipers, with a few Dunlins and about 6-8 White-rumped Sandpipers. Further around the point of Terrapin trail, I found a few Ruddy Turnstones. Out on one of the Islands in Pumpkin Channel, I counted at least 32 Snowy Egrets…quite a number gathered in one location. After spending some time scanning the flocks of peeps that kept coming and going, I finally moved on, satisfied that there was nothing else at the moment that I was overlooking. The rest of the walk around the West Pond was uneventful with most of the usual species at this time of the year. The gardens did not yield much either and I did not hear or see the Mourning Warbler. I continued on over to Big John’s and the East Pond where I saw again, most of the usual species. I was a bit bothered by the large number of Mute Swans; I counted 78 and that does not bode well for other water fowl due to the Mute Swans aggressive behavior. I called it a day around 12:30 PM. Tags: Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, birding

Total species seen: 41

1. American Crow
2. American Redstart
3. American Robin
4. Black-crowned Night Heron
5. Brandt
6. Brown Thrasher
7. Canada Goose
8. Clapper Rail (Heard)
9. Common Yellow-throat
10. Cowbird
11. Double Crested Cormorant
12. Dunlin
13. European Starling
14. Forster's Tern
15. Glossy Ibis
16. Gray Catbird
17. Great Egret
18. Greater Black-backed Gull
19. Green Heron
20. Herring Gull
21. House Sparrow
22. House Wren
23. Laughing Gull
24. Little-blue Heron
25. Mallard
26. Mourning Dove
27. Mute Sawn
28. Northern Mockingbird
29. Northern Shoveler
30. Osprey
31. Oystercatcher
32. Red-winged Blackbird
33. Rudy Turnstone
34. Semipalmated Sandpiper
35. Snowy Egret
36. Song Sparrow
37. Tree Swallow
38. White-rumped Sandpiper
39. Willet
40. Yellow Warbler
41. Yellow-crowned Night Heron