Aside from my hike at Black Rock Forest, I seemed to find Killdeer everywhere I birded this weekend. Many are working on their second clutch of the season. Meanwhile, the young Killdeer from the first clutch now have the appearance of clumsy teenagers; not quite adult size with a very pathetic looking tail, lol. Here’s a few shots from the weekend, with Killdeer ages ranging from eggs in the nest to the adult watching over.
It’s the time of year when A LOT is happening. Birds are on the move and seemingly everywhere. While I think most birders were out looking for wood warblers, I kind of did my own thing since warblers are not high priority for me. That said, I added 27 species to my Orange County year list in the past couple of days. I added over half of those birds on a 7.5 mile hike at Black Rock Forest on Saturday morning. It was a birdy hike with 44 species observed.
Saturday afternoon I went over to Walkill River National Wildlife Refuge’s Winding Waters Trail. Birding bud Kyle Knapp let me know that he’d had shorebirds there in the flooded fields. I was able to relocate the Dunlin that he’d had there earlier, as well as: Killdeer (2), Least Sandpipers (9), Greater Yellowlegs (many), Lesser Yellowlegs (even more), and Solitary Sandpipers (15+). The birds were distant, and the heat shimmer was terrible, which made for poor viewing.
I went back to Winding Waters this morning to follow up on the Black-bellied Plover that Jeanne Cimorelli located after I’d left on Saturday. As luck would have it, I was joined by fellow hawk watcher and all around good guy, Tom Millard. We scanned the shorebirds from many locations on the trail and totaled 9 species of shorebirds (we added Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover and Spotted Sandpiper to the birds listed above). The number of shorebirds at that location right now is really something – it’s hard to put a number on it, but I’m guesstimating over 200 shorebirds present.
I had a great start to the new year, joining birding bud Maria Loukeris on a day trip to Manasquan Inlet on the Jersey Shore. It was super birdy, as the shore always seems to be. Our best bird was RAZORBILL, of which we had several, both flying and on the water. Unfortunately they were too far out for photos. Our best fail was missing a Dovekie that flew through – it was called out, but somehow neither one of us was able to get on the bird; that was frustrating. The bird of the day for me, however, was BONAPARTE’S GULL. There was a good number of them around and the light lent itself to some decent photos. It was good to get out of the area, excellent to spend the day birding with Maria, and an all around great start to the birding year.
Note: I’m experiencing some problems with the blog receiving comments. I’m trying to figure out what the problem is… please let me know if you try and comment but can’t – any information will be helpful. Email me at mattzeit@yahoo.com, thanks.
Yesterday was much more productive, but I did get out this morning as well. I didn’t have much of a plan, so I pretty much just wandered the black dirt in hopes of shorebirds or large collections of geese. I pretty much got neither, lol. The only shorebirds of the day were a half dozen Pectoral Sandpipers and 2 Killdeer at the Camel Farm. And, in spite of seeing flock after flock fly over, I never tracked down any large groups of geese. I always like to check in on Sundays regardless, so here’s a few shots from the past couple of days. I hope you are not sick of pipits yet – they are all over the black dirt and I can’t seem to resist photographing them.
I woke up early this morning and birded the black dirt before heading to Mt. Peter, where I was scheduled to be the official counter. It was a gorgeous morning, and I was happy just to be out and about and not working. I didn’t have high expectations, so I was especially happy to find another nice collection of shorebirds. In one field I had loads of Killdeer, a Wilson’s Snipe, a Pectoral Sandpiper, and a BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER. The birds were close, the light was nice; it was a lovely start to my Saturday.
Afterwards, I headed up to Mt. Peter to spend the day counting hawks on the mountain. It was an interesting flight today; I don’t know if it was due to the a substantial south wind we had today, but nearly all the migrating raptors I counted today were low birds, just above the treetops. I had a modest 30 migrants today, 20 of which where Sharp-shinned Hawks. As usual, I’ve included my Hawkcount report below.
The first week back at work after vacation is always a doozy, but this one has been especially rough. This seemed to make it that much sweeter when I finally got out to do some birding tonight and found a nice collection of shorebirds in the black dirt. The highlight was (6) WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPERS, which are always a favorite. Also in the same field was over 100 Killdeer, (3) Least Sandpipers, and a single Pectoral Sandpiper. It was a nice break from the grind.
My first bird of the weekend was a new yard bird for me – Common Raven. It was just after sunrise on Saturday morning and the bird landed on one of the evergreens in the backyard and was calling repeatedly. I grabbed my camera and the sun was just barely over the trees and casting the bird in warm light as I snapped some shots. The bird was species number 55 in my yard for 2022; I thought that was a nice way to start the weekend’s birding.
I was the official counter at Mount Peter Hawkwatch on Saturday. I got out early and birded the black dirt for a little while before heading up to the mountain. I was rewarded with a couple of BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPERS. There were also hundreds (thousands?) of Tree Swallows around. When I saw them, in a few separate fields, they were on the ground and periodically picking up and taking flight. It was the most Tree Swallows I’ve ever seen.
Tree Swallows would prove to be the theme of the day; when I got to Mount Peter there were just loads of them migrating through. Again, I witness hundreds and hundreds of Tree Swallows as I searched the skies for migrating raptors.
The raptor flight was weak, and I only had 14 migrating birds for the day. I did count another Osprey (always cool to see in migration), and I counted my first migrating Bald Eagle of the year. For more details, see my report for the day at the bottom of this post.
This morning I birded the Black Dirt Region again – I was able to locate three Buff-breasted Sandpipers, but no other shorebirds (other than the expected loads of Killdeer). I’m coming across loads of American Kestrels in the black dirt recently; I saw ten just this morning.
This morning I headed to Sullivan County to follow up on some of the shorebird action John Haas and others have had there recently. I was hoping for some good photo ops, or that maybe I might see something special. I also thought that I still needed Greater Yellowlegs for the county, but I checked eBird when I got home and I’d had one in Hurleyville back in May; it was not a memorable siting as you can tell.
My first stop was Morningside Park, where I didn’t have a large variety of shorebirds (Killdeer and Least, Semipalmated, & Spotted Sandpipers), but as always the photo ops were incredible, in spite of the overcast, low light conditions. I enjoyed spending time up-close with the Leasts and the Semisandpipers; while the Spotteds kept their distance and the Killdeer were flyovers.
While I was at Morningside, I spoke with John and he suggested my next stops should be Swan Lake and Lake Jefferson. Swan Lake didn’t have all that many birds present, but there was some decent variety: Least Sandpipers, Killdeer, Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Pectoral Sandpiper. Lake Jefferson proved to be my most productive stop; I had (7) species of shorebirds there (Semipalmated Plover, Killdeer, Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpiper, Solitary Sandpiper, and Lesser Yellowlegs).
Back in Orange County, I stopped at Bullville Pond to check out conditions there. The pond is mostly dried up, but there was a good number of shorebirds still present (KILL, LESA, SPSA, SOSA, LEYE). Also of note, on Friday evening I found (4) American Golden-Plovers in the black dirt. They were a little distant for good photos, but it was nice to see them and to document.
As I was winding down at work today, Bruce Nott contacted me to let me know he had a RUDDY TURNSTONE at the Moodna Creek sandbar in Newburgh Bay on the Hudson River. I have long wanted to kayak this area, and tonight I took the opportunity to do so. The turnstone hung in there for me, and the lighting was nice, so it made for yet another fabulous shore birding experience this season. The RUTU was my 270th species in Orange County. As a bonus (as if I needed one), there were (7) Caspian Terns also present on the sandbar, making a racket and being generally beautiful and entertaining. Huge thanks to Bruce for a great evening!
QUICK POST: This morning Bradley White located a MARBLED GODWIT on the west side of Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge’s Liberty Loop. Birding bud Maria Loukeris notified me, and Linda Scrima followed up by reporting the bird on the Mearns Bird Club app in the afternoon. I headed to the loop right after work. I hustled to the west side, but when I arrived there was no sign of the bird. Fortunately I ran into Ronnie DiLorenzo, who let me know the bird had relocated to the southernmost pond in the loop. I once again hustled to the back pond and this time I got lucky and the bird was not only present, but not too far out. This is the second straight Monday where I got an absolutely fabulous shorebird – it’s definitely a good cure for a bad case of the Mondays!
