Reed's Sod Farm 8/25--Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Buff-breasted Sandpiper with Semipalmated Plover

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it.

                  --W.C. Fields

I've always found Fields' advice to be sensible, especially when it comes to chasing birds (which are, after all, I keep reminding myself, just birds), so I must have been feeling damn foolish this morning since I drove up to Reed's Sod Farm for the third time in a little over a week, looking for elusive "grasspipers." My first two tries last week were fruitless, and on my third try this morning the only "interesting" birds I found was a small flock of Horned Larks, on the dirt, no surprising for a species that seems to love the crappiest ground available. I walked the length of Herbert Road and up York Road to look at more harvested dirt when the local bird maven pulled up and told me I was searching the wrong place. The bird I was looking for had been seen most of the time behind me, at the corner of Herbert & York. I walked back there and found a photographer who had seen the bird earlier and was waiting for it to reappear. 

If there is one thing I really hate doing, it's standing on York Road with traffic whizzing within inches of my ass, waiting for a bird to show up. I stood there as long as I could stand it then hoisted my scope and left. "It is only a bird," I said aloud. I walked back to my car, which was parked in the Union Transportation Trail lot on Sharon Road, stowed the scope and walked the trail for a while. Sometimes I find notable birds along that converted railbed, but today was not one of those days. 

So I decided to look again--four times, I'm not usually that persistent. I drove down to the corner of Herbert & York and saw, once again, many, many Killdeer, but not my desired species. But I had passed two birders on Herbert, one with a scope, one with a camera. Looking at the photographer I could tell they had the bird--there is a way photographers look at the preview screens on their cameras that signals a good bird--they peer at the screen and fiddle with the controls. So, I drove back up there and asked the guy with the scope if they'd had any luck--he waved me back toward where I'd been standing. "It must be an angle thing," I thought. The photographer was a little more helpful and with my scope I found the Buff-breasted Sandpiper running along in the relatively high grass--it was an angle thing, since the slightly higher ground I was standing on gave me a view above the sod. But it was too far away for a picture, so I walked down almost to York, again, and there I was able to take the poor photographs you see here. 

With Killdeer in upper left corner.

Now, I would rather have seen this bird at Whitesbog (where, when the bogs are drawn down, they appear annually), but this year the bogs are full because of water worries. Actually, I rather have seen this bird in Ocean County, where I have only recorded it once (on the Ocean County side of Whitesbog when Big Tank was empty). Actually, I'd rather see this bird in my backyard, because, frankly, chasing after birds is losing its appeal. But, with all that, I'm still glad I got the bird, damn fool that I am.