Brigantine 9/5

This picture is a metaphor for what we found at Brig today--nothing!

Well, not really nothing, we tallied 40 species today when you include the grackles and Turkey Vultures on the GSP, but compared to the reports from yesterday we found less than half the birds from 24 hours previous. I can understand us not finding some of the little sandpipers, but when lots of ducks are reported and we don't see them, that's means they've moved on.

Best bird, by far, was a Whimbrel far out in the South Pool. In the big-nosed bird category we had 3 Black Skimmers. There were hundreds of egrets, snowy & great, hundreds of gulls, hundreds of sandpipers, but as to challenging birds, not much at all.

Shari was able to get really nice, tight shots of this juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron. Notice the film over the usually red-eye--it's sleeping!

She also got some good shots of 3 Ospreys in a row but I refuse to post them. I've learned that while driving the loop, if we see a birder with a scope intent on something in the pool it might be worth stopping, but if I see a photographer stop and start clicking away, chances are he's got an Osprey and who cares? So I found it ironically amusing to watch Shari photograph the birds, even it was unusual to have 3 of them all in a row on two perches.

The (semi-pathetic) list:
E.B. Forsythe Wildlife Drive

Number of species:     38

Canada Goose     100     Grazing, North Pool

Mute Swan     4     With geese

American Black Duck     2

Mallard     8

Blue-winged Teal     10     Flyover, North Pool

Northern Shoveler     1     South Pool

Double-crested Cormorant     30

Great Blue Heron     3

Great Egret     100

Snowy Egret     100

Black-crowned Night-Heron     1     Juvenile, East Pool, on weir

Glossy Ibis     5

Osprey     8

Northern Harrier     2

Black-bellied Plover     4

Semipalmated Plover     5

Greater Yellowlegs     20

Lesser Yellowlegs     20

Whimbrel     1     South Pool

Semipalmated Sandpiper     500

Least Sandpiper     5

White-rumped Sandpiper     1     South Pool

Short-billed Dowitcher     10

Laughing Gull     100

Ring-billed Gull     100

Herring Gull     200

Great Black-backed Gull     20

Common Tern     5

Forster's Tern     50

Black Skimmer     3

Blue Jay     2

American Crow     2

Tree Swallow     200

Barn Swallow     2

Carolina Wren     1

Gray Catbird     3

Red-winged Blackbird     70

American Goldfinch     1     Molting, near benches