Thursday, September 12, 2013

Shorebirding is not over yet...

Although the shorebirds have been in small numbers, I keep checking the East Pond at Jamaica Bay to see if anything new or noteworthy would drop in.  It so happened, that yesterday I happened upon the first Godwit of the year that I am aware of on the pond.  A Marbled Godwit, just happened to be hanging out amongst the several hundred Double Crested Cormorants that have invaded the pond and took off flying right by me just as I spotted it.

Later on, I came upon a nice looking Western Sandpiper feeding among the Semipalmated Sandpipers, which provided a good comparison of the two species.

A Juvenile Stilt Sandpiper added to the diversity on the pond and provided very nice looks.  But the surprise of the day was a Wilson's Phalarope that was feeding actively.  This bird had a band and the first such documented bird for me.

Overall, there was not a lot of shorebirds but the diversity of the number of species seen was not too bad.  In total I saw 17 species of shorebirds and that is not a shabby number for this time of the year at all.  On the non shorebirding front, I had very nice looks at a Black-billed Cuckoo with a birder named Jonathan.



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