Sod Farming 8/20--American Golden-Plover

Since the month began I've been checking out the various sod farms clustered around Allentown, looking for "grasspipers." Until today, all I've come up with were Killdeer, Least Sandpipers, and Semipalmated Plovers, all fine birds, but nothing worth standing with your back to a busy road hoping a tractor-trailer doesn't swerve off course.

This morning, while I was doing something else, I saw that, finally, some decent birds were being found up there, but of course, I couldn't go. It wasn't until the late afternoon that I managed to gather myself together and drive up there, without much hope. The first farm I tried had tractors running around on it, so any of the cool birds that were seen there this morning weren't going to be seen this afternoon. The second place I tried, one I like better because you can view the fields from the parking lot of a recreation area, had another birder there peering through his scope when I arrived. "Another masochist," I thought, but at least he had some interesting birds in his optics. With a little help I finally managed to find 3 of the 6 American Golden-Plovers he was seeing in the dirt. Still, in order to get even the lousy photograph above, we had to cross the road to the opposite shoulder while rush hour began to build. Unpleasant to say the least.

There are more farms north of that spot and the one I like the best for both sentimental and logistical reasons, is one that is adjacent to the Union Transportation Trail. Lately, I've been parking there and actually walking on Herbert Road, scanning the fields. I've done well with Killdeer there and today we also had Horned Larks which blend amazingly well with the clods of dirt, but aside from more Semi Plovers, we had no "good" grasspipers there. My new friend was going on to the sod farm at Gordon Road, but I looked at that one recently and it still had sod on it--the farms are best once the sod has been rolled up and there's nothing but a barren field and, with luck, a few puddles. I decided that "one cool bird a day suffices" and headed home.