{"id":1602,"date":"2013-07-31T21:29:25","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T01:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2013-07-31T21:29:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T01:29:25","slug":"black-billed-cuckoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=1602","title":{"rendered":"BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A very exciting find for me – Black-billed Cuckoo out at Wallkill River NWR 7\/31\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seeing and photographing an adult BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO<\/strong> was definitely the highlight of my visit to Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge after work today. It was a fabulous night for birding; the weather was perfect, there were minimal bothersome bugs, and there were plenty of birds to be seen.<\/p>\n

I walked the Liberty Loop in the counter clockwise direction and not far up the trail I found a pair of Great Egrets (of a total of four for the day).<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I know it is an invasive plant, but I love the purple Loosestrife in this photo. I also like the water drops falling from the tips of the egret’s toes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walking up the west side of the loop, I heard a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. This was exciting to me; if you read my posts <\/a>this past spring, you know how much I like this bird. I heard it call one time but I was not able to locate the bird. My disappointment was short lived, less than twenty minutes later I saw a large bird fly from the woods and land in a tree in the marsh. I figured it was a Brown Thrasher, but I was pleasantly surprised to find my best bird of the night, the Black-billed Cuckoo. This is a bird I have only heard before, so it was awesome to get really good looks and some relatively distant but decent photos too. Here’s one more shot of the bird:<\/p>\n

\"Black-billed<\/a>
Black-billed Cuckoo at Walkill River NWR, 7\/31\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My main reason for going to the refuge was to see if any shorebirds had moved in. There was not much in the way of shorebirds, a pair of Semipalmated Sandpipers, 3 Killdeer, and 9 Least Sandpipers were all that I found. All were seen on the southernmost part of the loop.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two of the nine Least Sandpipers that I saw out at the Wallkill River NWR, 7\/31\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I totalled 39 species for the day, a couple of which are birds that I don’t often get a chance to photograph.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This looks like a young Northern Mockingbird to me. It was with two other mockingbirds that appeared to be adults. Wallkill River NWR 7\/31\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I love this little bird but don’t really see them very often. House Wren, one of two perched in the same tree at Wallkill River NWR 7\/31\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, here is my list for the evening:<\/p>\n

Canada Goose \u00a020
\nWood Duck \u00a01
\nMallard \u00a010
\nGreat Blue Heron \u00a012
\nGreat Egret \u00a04
\nTurkey Vulture \u00a01
\nRed-tailed Hawk \u00a01
\nKilldeer \u00a03
\nSolitary Sandpiper \u00a01
\nSemipalmated Sandpiper \u00a02
\nLeast Sandpiper \u00a09
\nMourning Dove \u00a02
\nYellow-billed Cuckoo \u00a01
\nBlack-billed Cuckoo \u00a01
\nRuby-throated Hummingbird \u00a01
\nDowny Woodpecker \u00a01
\nNorthern Flicker \u00a01
\nEastern Wood-Pewee \u00a02
\nWillow Flycatcher \u00a01
\nEastern Phoebe \u00a04
\nEastern Kingbird \u00a06
\nBlue Jay \u00a01
\nAmerican Crow \u00a02
\nTree Swallow \u00a011
\nBarn Swallow \u00a04
\nHouse Wren \u00a02
\nBlue-gray Gnatcatcher \u00a01
\nAmerican Robin \u00a06
\nGray Catbird \u00a04
\nNorthern Mockingbird \u00a03
\nEuropean Starling \u00a01
\nCommon Yellowthroat \u00a02
\nSong Sparrow \u00a012
\nIndigo Bunting \u00a08
\nBobolink \u00a03
\nRed-winged Blackbird \u00a0X
\nCommon Grackle \u00a010
\nOrchard Oriole \u00a08
\nAmerican Goldfinch \u00a015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeing and photographing an adult BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO was definitely the highlight of my visit to Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge after work today. It was a fabulous night for birding; the weather was perfect, there were minimal bothersome bugs, and there were plenty of birds to be seen. I walked the Liberty Loop in the … Continue reading “BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-wallkillwildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-pQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1616,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions\/1616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}