{"id":5988,"date":"2016-06-18T15:53:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T19:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=5988"},"modified":"2016-06-18T15:53:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T19:53:44","slug":"61816-birding-the-bashakill-by-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=5988","title":{"rendered":"6\/18\/16 – Birding the Bashakill by Boat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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~A Red-winged Blackbird strikes a pose at the Bashakill WMA, 6\/18\/16.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I broke out the kayak for the first time of the year this morning. I put in at the Bashakill’s Deli Fields boat launch just before 7:00 am and headed northeast, thus starting what ended up being a six hour paddle. I was hoping for some decent photographs, and I had three target birds for the morning: Pied-billed Grebe, Common Gallinule, and Least Bittern. Actually, the Least Bittern was my main goal, and I would have been happy just to catch a glimpse since I have never even seen this bird yet. Pied-billed Grebes, unfortunately were a no-show. Common Gallinules were vocal and I eventually caught a glimpse of one bird, but I was unable to get any photos. I had an interesting brush with a Least Bittern; early on in my paddle, I heard one calling. I followed the sound and eventually pinpointed where it was coming from. Unfortunately, the bird was in very thick vegetation with almost no visibility. I tried to see if I could approach it from the other side, but again the vegetation was too dense. It was both exciting and frustrating; the bird was so close but as I tried to wait it out, I started to realize how unlikely it would be for the bird to\u00a0come out into the channel. After a while the bird went quiet and I decided to continue with my paddle (I eventually heard a second Least Bittern, but this one was distant and deep into the vegetation).<\/p>\n

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~One of MANY Wood Ducks seen while paddling out at the Bashakill WMA, 6\/18\/16.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I ended up paddling all the way to Haven Road; I had many birds along the way but most of them were heard and not seen. I passed underneath the Bald Eagles’ nest and heard the young calling. Further on, I saw an adult Osprey perched just off the nest. At one point, I watched\u00a0a Cooper’s Hawk fly clear across the Bash with Red-winged Blackbirds on its tail. The hawk never flew more than a foot above the vegetation as it bobbed and weaved trying to ditch the blackbirds. At Haven Road I paddled to the east side of the Bash, hoping to hear the Hooded Warbler that has been in that area, which I did, and then, to my surprise I also heard a Barred Owl calling in the distance. And then right after that, I had a pair of Red-shouldered hawks flying above the trees.<\/p>\n

I turned around\u00a0and meandered\u00a0my way back to the\u00a0Deli Fields boat launch. I figure that I probably paddled nearly 10 miles in 6 hours and I was sore, mostly in my back. I ended up with 54 species for the day, which didn’t seem too bad to me.<\/p>\n

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~Eastern Kingbird at the Bashakill, 6\/18\/16.~\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~I haven’t taken many Great Blue Heron photos yet this year, I love shoot them at the Bashakill with all the heavy vegetation. 6\/18\/16.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I broke out the kayak for the first time of the year this morning. I put in at the Bashakill’s Deli Fields boat launch just before 7:00 am and headed northeast, thus starting what ended up being a six hour paddle. I was hoping for some decent photographs, and I had three target birds for … Continue reading “6\/18\/16 – Birding the Bashakill by Boat”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sullivancounty","category-bashakill"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-1yA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5988","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=5988"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5996,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5988\/revisions\/5996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}