{"id":4811,"date":"2015-08-15T17:57:05","date_gmt":"2015-08-15T21:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=4811"},"modified":"2015-08-15T17:57:05","modified_gmt":"2015-08-15T21:57:05","slug":"more-morningside-park-81515","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=4811","title":{"rendered":"More Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15"},"content":{"rendered":"
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~A Least Sandpiper just after sunrise at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kyle Dudgeon and I headed to Morningside Park early this morning and arrived just as the sun was rising. We unloaded the kayaks and hit the water hoping to do well with\u00a0shorebirds. It was a gorgeous morning with a little bit of cool breeze; it was supposed to be a hot day, so it was good to be out ahead of the heat. We paddled out to the small islands that form in the west end of the\u00a0lake at this time each summer, which attract migrating shorebirds. On this day, unfortunately, shorebird numbers were down, we had 1 Killdeer, 5 Least Sandpipers, 2 Spotted Sandpipers,<\/strong> and a single Lesser Yellowlegs<\/strong>\u00a0which made a brief appearance before moving on. Kyle and I were not deterred and we made the best of it by taking many photos of the Least Sandpipers which were very accommodating. I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating – seeing the shorebirds at Morningside Park by kayak is quite a treat. You can get SO close to the birds who simply go about their business as if you were\u00a0not there at all. We also paddled a good portion of the rest of the lake; we had good looks at Great Blue Herons, a couple of Green Herons, and we finally got Kyle his lifer Belted Kingfisher<\/strong> – he was surprised at how big they are! We got great looks at a kingfisher, unfortunately it was in poor light so no photos to share. What a great morning of birding!<\/p>\n

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~This shot is nearly full frame, I cropped it a little bit just to improve the composition. Least Sandpiper at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~This is my favorite shot from the morning – Least Sandpiper leg and wing stretch! Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Look at the feet on this bird! Least Sandpiper at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~LESA at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~This is a cute look to me. Least Sandpiper at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~I love this shot, unfortunately the camera has focused on the bird’s right foot, making the eye\/head a little soft. LESA at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~We had one lone Killdeer while we were there. I was curious to see if this bird would flush when we approached in our kayaks, but it did not. Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~A rare Green Heron photo! Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~A Great Blue Heron in the vegetation at Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Dudgeon and I headed to Morningside Park early this morning and arrived just as the sun was rising. We unloaded the kayaks and hit the water hoping to do well with\u00a0shorebirds. It was a gorgeous morning with a little bit of cool breeze; it was supposed to be a hot day, so it was … Continue reading “More Morningside Park, 8\/15\/15”<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sullivancounty","category-walkingwaterbirds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-1fB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811","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=4811"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4829,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions\/4829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}