Brigantine 5/5--Semipalmated Sandpiper

The last--and only--time I saw a Bar-tailed Godwit, I was on my honeymoon, fighting off mosquitoes as large as hummingbirds, in a salt marsh called The Carmargue in southern France. Today, more like an early March morning out on the dikes of Brigantine than Cinco de Mayo, we tried and failed to find our first North American BTGO, despite 2 turns around the loop. Of course, as Shari predicted, others saw the blinking bird just as we were on the other side of the refuge--in fact, she predicted the time exactly: 2:40. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until after we got home. Here's the sour grapes: If we had seen the bird, it was so far away that the views would not have been very satisfactory.

Windy weather is a double problem. You don't feel like standing there getting windblown, trying to hold the scope steady, while you scan for birds that in any case, are much smarter than you and have decided to hunker down in the grass out of the wind. So the first trip around the dikes was kind of dispiriting.  After lunch, the sun started to come through the overcast and it warmed up a few degrees so we did another loop, adding a few birds to the list.  The most interesting was this Bald Eagle which sent a group of cormorants off their roost and panicked a flock of shorebirds. The black ducks didn't seem to mind its presence.

Photo: Shari Zirlin

Of course, what they say about pizza, applies to Brig--even a lousy day there is still pretty good.

46 species
Brant  300
Canada Goose  100
Mute Swan  4
American Black Duck  105
Mallard  8
Green-winged Teal  6
Double-crested Cormorant  15
Great Egret  10
Snowy Egret  8
Glossy Ibis  2
Osprey  4
Bald Eagle  3
Clapper Rail  1    Heard
Black-bellied Plover  15
American Oystercatcher  4
Greater Yellowlegs  50
Willet  25
Lesser Yellowlegs  2
Whimbrel  30
Semipalmated Sandpiper  5
Dunlin  500
Short-billed Dowitcher  3
Laughing Gull  1
Herring Gull  10
Great Black-backed Gull  20
Forster's Tern  25
Fish Crow  3
Purple Martin  2
Tree Swallow  3
Barn Swallow  1
Carolina Wren  1    Heard
Eastern Bluebird  1    Visitor's Center
American Robin  2    Parking lot
Gray Catbird  1    Entrance
European Starling  1    Under martin houses
Common Yellowthroat  2    Heard, Gull Pond
Yellow Warbler  1    Heard, Exit Ponds
Chipping Sparrow  2    Picnic tables
Field Sparrow  1    Heard, Experimental Pool
Song Sparrow  1    Heard, road to Gull Pond
White-throated Sparrow  1    Picnic tables
Northern Cardinal  1    Heard, Upland trail
Red-winged Blackbird  25
Boat-tailed Grackle  1
Brown-headed Cowbird  5
House Sparrow  1    Squatter in martin houses.