Brig 3/31--Snowy Egret

Snowy Egrets from a distance.

My final look around for year birds this month was at Brig on a field trip with Mike & Pete. While our numbers were good, the only new bird I added for the year was Snowy Egret. Mike saved the day on the 2nd trip around the dikes, finding first a pair, then eventually 5, in the SE pool along the south dike. Usually the field marks for Snowy Egret are obvious, but these were at quite a distance, and while we could tell they had dark bills, it was more size and behavior (dancing with wings flapping) that told us these were not Great Egrets, of which there was an abundance. We're right on the cusp of migration, so while duck & geese numbers were down, shorebirds were not in great supply. We had half a dozen American Oystercatchers and 18 Greater Yellowlegs, along with the requisite Dunlins, but no Lesser Yellowlegs or peeps. By my next trip there everything should be flipped and it will be a shorebird palooza. One can hope.

My last trip of the month netted 64 species, a good number and most of them fun to find.
Snow Goose 400
Brant 200
Canada Goose 60
Mute Swan 12
Wood Duck 2 Entrance Pond
Northern Shoveler 8
Gadwall 5
Mallard 45
American Black Duck 50
Northern Pintail 2 Gull Pond
Green-winged Teal 30
Ring-necked Duck 8
Bufflehead 30
Hooded Merganser 4
Red-breasted Merganser 8
Ruddy Duck 1 SW impoundment
Red-throated Loon 6
Common Loon 1
Horned Grebe 3
Double-crested Cormorant 57 Exact count
Great Blue Heron 10
Great Egret 60
Snowy Egret 5 SE Impoundment
Black Vulture 2
Turkey Vulture 9
Osprey 11
Northern Harrier 2
Bald Eagle 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Coot 6
American Oystercatcher 6
Dunlin 55
Greater Yellowlegs 18
Ring-billed Gull 3
Herring Gull 70
Great Black-backed Gull 5
Peregrine Falcon 1
Blue Jay 2 Heard
American Crow 1
Fish Crow 9
Tree Swallow 40 Mostly around Visitor's Ctr
Carolina Chickadee 2
Tufted Titmouse 3 Heard
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Carolina Wren 1 Heard
Golden-crowned Kinglet 3
Eastern Bluebird 2 Visitor's Ctr
American Robin 3
Northern Mockingbird 1 Gull Pond
Cedar Waxwing 3
Pine Warbler 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler 5
Chipping Sparrow 1 Heard parking lot
Field Sparrow 2 Heard upland
Song Sparrow 9
Swamp Sparrow 1 Heard road to Gull Pond
Eastern Towhee 1 Heard upland
Northern Cardinal 3
Red-winged Blackbird 50
Common Grackle 1
Boat-tailed Grackle 1
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 3
House Sparrow 1