Whitesbog 9/5--Baird's Sandpiper

Baird's Sandpiper

At Whitesbog, as they used to say on Top 40 radio: The hits just keep on coming. 

I was there pre-dawn again, trying once more for a sweep of the nocturnal 4 (screech, horned, whip, nighthawk) but only got two (screech, in a new spot, whips in the usual areas), and met up with Jim. It's been our experience that scoping the bogs early is not all that productive; for some reason, perhaps because they're diurnal migrants, the shorebirds tend to pop up mid-morning, We know there were going to be other birders coming (the state of Middle Bog is almost perfect in it ratio of mud flats to water), so our strategy was to take our walk around the Village and in Ditch Meadow, and let them do the heavy scoping. If they found anything, they'd call. They called.

We'd had a goodly number of birds, though probably the most interesting was a Northern Waterthrush at the entrance to the boardwalk trail, exactly where I found one a year ago. We were halfway around the big pond in Ditch Meadow when Matt phoned Jim: Baird's Sandpiper. Of the so-called grasspipers, this is probably the most sought after one in NJ, since they have a short migration window, and the state is not really on their migration flyway. Only a scant number of juveniles show up. What was surprising, to me, was that the bird was not in the Lower Bog (where there was one last year) which has nice grassy areas, but in Middle Bog where the only vegetation is dying water lilies and grassy clumps on some of the sand humps. Ditch Meadow is only about a 10-minute walk from the bogs, but in that time a car had driven up one of the dams and flushed the bird away. Matt & Tom were trying to relocate when we met up with them. Middle Bog is only twenty acres, I've been told, though I find this hard to believe it is that large, even without a concept of what an acre is, but it is big enough to hide a little bird among other feeding sandpipers. 

Jim and I got our scopes from our vehicles and started scanning the east end of the bog. To add to the confusion, there were 3 White-rumped Sandpipers today, which can look very much like a Baird's, especially to someone, like me, who sees maybe one a year. We thought we had a candidate (turned out to be White-rumped) when the bird was relocated down on the west end of the bog. Once it was refound, it stayed put, despite traffic and the arrival of more birders. Again, it seemed surprising to me that it was not only not in grass, it wasn't even on mud, but spent the entire time I observed it picking at the water, often dipping its head below the surface. Maybe I shouldn't take this "grasspiper" thing too literally. 

Whitesbog is only missing one of the expected rarities (American Golden-Plover) this season and I'll be going there tomorrow hoping that the predicted bad weather brings one in while at the same time that the weather is not so bad that I can't stand birding in it.