JBWR East Pond

We took a jaunt to The Raunt today. This was our first excursion to the southern end of the East Pond this year. The north end is apparently too mucky for any birding--for some reason the rangers at JBWR didn't lower the East Pond as much as usual.

However, there was no dearth of birds either at the south end or in the middle of the pond where The Raunt is. Try looking up the word "raunt" on Google and all you'll come up with are references to Jamaica Bay. It was, from what I understand, a rail station and hotel, but all that remains are posts and timbers in the middle of the  East Pond. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that the word is originally Dutch.

Okay, now that we're done with the "words" part of Birds & Words, the Birds part features this male Wilson's Phalarope that Shari was able to photograph decently. The 2nd shot shows the phalarope with a yellowlegs (probably a lesser) showing the size difference between the species.  We've seen Wilson's Phalaropes, before, but never this close up.  That's what's great about the East Pond--you literally walk among the peeps and other sandpipers, so you're able to to identify them a lot easier. Shari found a couple of White-rumped Sandpipers, a bird that would be really difficult for us to id from the distances we normally see sandpipers at the West Pond or Brig. Supposedly there are a couple of Baird's Sandpipers also on the south part of the pond, but that's a species I'd be extremely reluctant to call, especially in the fall when all the plumages are pretty dull--they're a little bigger than Semipalmated Sandpipers, but that isn't really much help when you have a hundred birds scampering in all directions.

The other highlight today was a big big-nosed bird--the American White Pelican is still incongruously on the pond, swimming placidly among the 200 or so swans. When we were on the south end it was up by the Raunt, floating behind the poles, and when we were across from the Raunt he was up on the north end of the pond, so it wasn't possible to get a picture. In all we found 39 species in a couple of leisurely hours--weather was overcast, humid and breezy as Hurricane Earl blustered far off the coast.
The list:

JBWR, East Pond

Canada Goose     50

Mute Swan     200

Gadwall   10

American Black Duck     1

Mallard     50

Northern Shoveler     7

American White Pelican     1     Raunt, then North End of Pond

Double-crested Cormorant     150

Great Blue Heron     2

Great Egret     2

Snowy Egret     25

Little Blue Heron     1

Black-crowned Night-Heron     7

Glossy Ibis     14

Osprey  1

Semipalmated Plover     25

Greater Yellowlegs     20

Lesser Yellowlegs     11

Semipalmated Sandpiper     100

Western Sandpiper     2

Least Sandpiper     4

White-rumped Sandpiper     2

Stilt Sandpiper     1

Short-billed Dowitcher     5

Wilson's Phalarope     1     Non-breeding

Laughing Gull     2

Ring-billed Gull     X

Herring Gull     X

Great Black-backed Gull     2

Common Tern     1

Forster's Tern     5

American Crow     2

Carolina Wren     1

Eastern Phoebe  1

Gray Catbird  1

Yellow Warbler  1

American Redstart   Juvenile

Song Sparrow   1

Red-winged Blackbird     75     Mostly juveniles.