Great Bay Blvd 5/24--White-rumped Sandpiper, Least Tern

White-rumped Sandpiper

Because I had an unpleasant appointment in the afternoon, I wanted to get some quality birding done in the morning. Despite the unpredicted rain, I drove down to Great Bay Blvd in Tuckerton. Once again, my high tide/low tide theory was put to the test and high tide, contrary to my beliefs, produced a lot of shorebirds fairly close to the road. My idea is that low tide provides more area for them to feed. But today, high tide forced them onto any little spit of land, and I found concentrations of them from the bulwark down to the inlet. 

Least Terns

I spent some time watching Forster's Terns fly around, hoping to pick out a smaller tern, but it wasn't until I crossed over the first wooden bridge and stopped to scan for shorebirds just on the other side that I finally found two Least Terns, nestled down in the marsh. Naturally, they had their backs to me, so all I could get was photos of their behinds, but still, a new year bird. 

After I walked the muddy flats of the inlet, happy to still see Red Knots feeding at the edges, the drizzle had stopped so I took my walk up the road. In one of the salt pans, close to the road, there were a small flock of Semipalmated Sandpipers and a couple of bigger peeps. I didn't think they were Western Sandpipers, but my mind went blank at any other possibilities. Maybe they were just oversized Semis. On the walk back, looking at them again, the penny, dime, quarter (inflation) dropped, and I realized, with a smack of the forehead that I was looking at my first White-rumped Sandpipers of the year. Usually, if I see them at all, I'm looking at them through a scope, not 20 feet away. 

Crossing the second wooden bridge I passed a couple of fishermen. We nodded. Then, as I passed, one called out, "Didja see any Red-breasted Sapsuckers?" In a world without consequences, I would have walked back and pushed him over the railing. I spent over 4 hours on the Boulevard. 12 species of shorebirds, 38 species altogether, not counting the swans and Glossy Ibis I saw up at Holly Lake. 

Then I drove up to Ocean Township and had a tooth yanked out of my head. 

Mallard  4
Clapper Rail  6     Heard
American Oystercatcher  4
Black-bellied Plover  27
Semipalmated Plover  7
Ruddy Turnstone  35
Red Knot  20
Dunlin  130
Least Sandpiper  1
White-rumped Sandpiper  2
Semipalmated Sandpiper  75
Short-billed Dowitcher  20
Greater Yellowlegs  2
Willet  16
Laughing Gull  80
Herring Gull  25
Great Black-backed Gull  3
Least Tern  2
Common Tern  25
Forster's Tern  20
Double-crested Cormorant  2
Great Blue Heron  1
Great Egret  50
Snowy Egret  32
Black-crowned Night-Heron  10
Osprey  2
Tree Swallow  4
Barn Swallow  35
European Starling  1
Gray Catbird  4
Seaside Sparrow  7
Saltmarsh Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  9
Red-winged Blackbird  25
Boat-tailed Grackle  50
Common Yellowthroat  7
Yellow Warbler  4
Northern Cardinal  1

Red Knots with Dunlin