Sandy Hook 9/15--Baird's Sandpiper, Bay-breasted Warbler

American Golden-Plover, Plum Island, Sandy Hook

I went up to Sandy Hook yesterday for Scott's trip. I added two year birds to my list--Baird's Sandpiper and Bay-breasted Warbler. The warbler was on the Road to Nowhere (which actually goes somewhere) and was hopping around in the foliage so no photo and it isn't much of a bird in fall plumage to look at anyway. The Baird's was a flyby flyover with a call at the tip of the Hook, the identity of which I'd never know had not Scott called it out. At least I got to watch it fly and see its long wings for a good amount of time, but again, no photo.

So let me tell you about one of the other rarities we saw, the American Golden-Plover on Plum Island. Golden-plovers can be real tricky i-d's even for experts and we had a couple of experts with us. One of the problems with this bird was that we were so close to it that none of us were really used to seeing one without a scope! So close up the bill looked longer than a golden-plover's might in a scope, and the legs were also out of wack in a close view. I was pretty sure, base on "giss" that it was a golden, but I'm hardly an expert. It did seem to have a "spangly" quality to it. 

Of course, the sure-fire way to separate golden-plover from Black-bellied Plover is the "armpit" field mark. If the underwing doesn't have black patches near the body, the bird is "golden." Black patches, the much more common Black-bellied. But this bird would not move. Even though there were more than 10 people in the vicinity, it just stood there. Most of the time you don't want a bird to fly. When you do, it won't.

None of us could bring ourselves to flush the bird just to make an i-d. However, there were other people around. A couple of guys dragging a fishing net and a fisherman with his daughter. But the dragnetters didn't come close enough and the fisherman, seeing us observe the bird, politely kept his distance. Again: most of the time you're begging someone not to get too close to a bird but this time we were hoping he or his daughter would get close enough to the bird to make it fly.

Then it occurred to me that what we wanted one of them to be was akin to the concept of the "shabbos goy." On the sabbath, Jews can't do any work, and work is broadly defined even to the point of turning on lights or the heating system. So they use a work around. They hire a gentile to come in and do that for them. We wanted the same thing from the fisherman or his daughter--ethically, I can't flush the bird, but you, as a non-birder, have no compunction about walking up to it--so why don't you do it! To make the analogy perfect, one of us would have had to offer the fisherman 5 bucks to walk up the beach. 

Eventually we had to move on without being 100% sure of the bird's species. We all left except for one of our number who was stubborn. He stuck around until eventually some other kid came up the beach (who he swears he didn't pay) and scared the bird away and enabled him to see all gray beneath the wings. So we had our confirmation and our ethics. 

My list for day--note only two warblers--migration was apparently stalled over the weekend. 

45 species

Mourning Dove  2

American Oystercatcher  2    Spermaceti Cove

Black-bellied Plover  6    Spermaceti Cove

American Golden-Plover  1   

Semipalmated Plover  3    Tip area

Piping Plover  6    Tip area

Killdeer  1    Tip area

Whimbrel  1    B lot beach

Sanderling  12    Tip area

Baird's Sandpiper  1   

Spotted Sandpiper  1    Spermaceti Cove

Willet  5    Spermaceti Cove

Laughing Gull  150

Herring Gull  100

Great Black-backed Gull  200

Caspian Tern  1    Big red beak. Spermaceti Cove

Black Tern  2    Small Tern dark wings fluttering flight

Common Tern  110

Forster's Tern  2    With Common Tern Flock at tip

Royal Tern  4

Double-crested Cormorant  40

Great Blue Heron  2

Great Egret 1

Snowy Egret  2

Green Heron 1

Turkey Vulture  1

Osprey  5

Belted Kingfisher  1

White-eyed Vireo  2

Common Raven  2    Seen & Heard

Tree Swallow  15

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1    Plum Island

House Wren  3

Carolina Wren  3    Heard

Gray Catbird  5

Northern Mockingbird  1    B lot

Veery  1

Cedar Waxwing  2    Road to Nowhere

House Finch  2

Seaside Sparrow  3    Plum Island

Song Sparrow  1    B lot

Eastern Towhee  5    Heard

Red-winged Blackbird  25

Common Yellowthroat  1

Bay-breasted Warbler  1    Road to Nowhere