Holgate 1/4--Marbled Godwit

A philosophical conundrum: 

I walked 2.1 miles of Holgate, at the south end of LBI, specifically looking for Marbled Godwits, scoping the bayside through all the cuts in the dunes. Holgate is where I go for my annual godwits and Snowy Owl. With the warm weather, today seemed like the perfect time to take that look walk I wasn't expecting the owl today, since on Monday's Christmas Count, one was listed as dead. No explanation as to the cause of its demise, but as that Jersey philosopher Bruce Springsteen has pointed out, "Everything dies, baby, that's a fact." I'll eschew the mysticism of the next line. 

But the godwits had been seen in decent numbers. I saw a few American Oystercatchers, which I would expect there too, along with the other winter shorebirds--Sanderlings, Dunlins, Black-bellied Plover, but I couldn't come across the godwits...I thought. I did see, first on the Clamming Trail and then later in flight with a huge flock of Brants, 5 Snow Geese (3,2), which is very unusual for Holgate. When the Brant flock settled down in the bay, I took a digiscope of the two Snow Geese sitting in the middle of all that black & white. Just for documentation since Snow Geese is "infrequently reported" locally, according to eBird. 

When I got home and transferred the photo to my computer, what did I find but a big brown shorebird standing to the left of the Snow Geese--a Marbled Godwit. My lousy photo is very much like much better ones that were taken during the CBC, with the godwits mixed in with the Brant. 

Can I count it? I knew that was where the godwits would be. And I could argue that I saw it through my scope without it registering in my brain. But the real rationale is that I'm doing a survey, recording the birds at a specific site at a specific time and today, 1/4/2023, at 11:36 A.M. there was one Marbled Godwit at Holgate, a unit of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR. Once, I declined to count a White-faced Ibis that turned up in the photo of a flock of flyby ibises, but I told my friend, who took the photo, that he should count it. I'm taking my same advice. 

23 species
Snow Goose  5     3 on clamming trail 2 mixed in with huge flock of Brants
Brant  1500
Canada Goose  75
Mallard  1
American Black Duck  80
Surf Scoter  3
Long-tailed Duck  15
Bufflehead  7
Red-breasted Merganser  1
American Oystercatcher  4     Bayside
Black-bellied Plover  1
Marbled Godwit  1     
Sanderling  40
Dunlin  50
Bonaparte's Gull  15     Ocean & bay
Ring-billed Gull  1
Herring Gull  100
Great Black-backed Gull  10
Red-throated Loon  5
Great Blue Heron  1
Great Egret  1     Clamming trail
American Crow  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  13