Brigantine 9/18--YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD

BVD: Better View Desired. I can't think of a more unsatisfactory life bird than today's YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD.

First of all, it's a bird I've always really wanted to see--so dramatic with its contrasting colors. So today, driving around Brig in what seemed like gale force winds, we were on the lookout for a flock of blackbirds in which the YEBL had been reported, but didn't hold out much hope, thinking the wind would keep any right-thinking bird hunkered down in the reeds. Around 2/3 of the way around we finally came across the flock which lifted out of the high grass,  flushed by our car's approach. They moved a little farther on when Shari suddenly shouted out that she saw the bird--of course, I didn't see it. Trying to get nearer only moved the birds farther along until they rose in a mass and flew across the channel. There I stood, the wind so strong it blew off my hat, scanning the other side of the channel looking at blackbirds and starlings, not finding what I wanted. However, I did see,  partially obscured by a tuft of tall grass, a bird with a yellow breast, which I at first dismissed as the light playing tricks with a starling. But then a starlings' iridescence doesn't run to yellow and when we informed by another birder that the blackbird reported was probably a female or juvenile, I realized I'd seen the bird. But it isn't the bird I want to see, not the "type" of the species and certainly not the way I want to see it. But it counts. The flock flew closer than was scared by a Northern  Harrier and flew south while the one-way wildlife drive at the point heads north. So, BVD.

But other "good" birds were about. Western Sandpipers were for once obvious in their coloration, size, and bill, another birder helped us pick out some White-rumped Sandpipers, and at least a couple of Dunlin, one in fading breeding plumage were mixed in with Semipalmated Sandpipers, plovers (semipalmated and black-bellied) and yellowlegs.

3 Turkey Vultures were on a mudflat, feasting on the carcass of a Black Skimmer. When  one of them picked up the head and dangled it upside down, the skimmer's huge beak swinging back and forth, it just about the grossest thing I've seen this year.

35 species for the circuit.
Canada Goose  25
Mute Swan  1
American Black Duck  20
Mallard  25
Double-crested Cormorant  75
Great Blue Heron  6
Great Egret  150
Snowy Egret  100
Black-crowned Night-Heron  5
Turkey Vulture  3    Eating remnants of Black Skimmer
Northern Harrier  1
Merlin  1
Peregrine Falcon  1
Black-bellied Plover  25
Semipalmated Plover  10
Greater Yellowlegs  9
Semipalmated Sandpiper  500
Western Sandpiper  5
Least Sandpiper  3
White-rumped Sandpiper  7
Dunlin  2
Short-billed Dowitcher  3
Laughing Gull  500
Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  2
Caspian Tern  1
Forster's Tern  200
Black Skimmer  4
Belted Kingfisher  1
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  1
Tree Swallow  15
European Starling  100
Red-winged Blackbird  100
YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD  1    With large flock of blackbirds and starlings near dogleg