Great Bay Blvd 10/4--Nelson's Sparrow

Nelson's Sparrow (note the buffy chest and blurry stripes)

When I woke, rather late for me, this morning, I had no idea where to take my walk, so I decided to check the database and see where I'd been on this date last year. I'd been to Great Bay Blvd and had done decently. I don't know what the tides were like then, but today the tide would be outgoing for most of my time there.

Fall along the boulevard (it is hilarious to me that this 4 mile stretch of broken asphalt bisecting a salt marsh is a "boulevard") can be good for odd sparrows but the only two I was able to espy along the road were Savannah and Song. However, at the inlet, where the water had not fully receded, little sparrows were running around in the mudflats and openings in the spartina grass. I had a hard time getting a look at any of them. "Patience," I told myself, "Patience will pay off." I never actually believe this but I tell myself it anyway. A couple of sparrows hopped up into the grass and in the raking autumn light, I was pretty certain they were Saltmarsh Sparrows. Good, but not the bird Iwanted. A little more to the east and a few more sparrows were skittering around. If I stood still and looked with my binoculars, a few would hop up onto the stalks of grass. I was looking at the striping of the sparrows, and finally one (or maybe it was two) of them looked blurrier than the rest and had buffy chests. It took me a while to convince myself, but I had at least one Nelson's Sparrow. I may had had two or the one I saw was very active. While Nelson's Sparrow (which use to be con-specific with Saltmarsh) isn't listed as rare this time of year, its secretiveness and similarity to its cousin, not to mention its skittishness, make it a very desired bird, especially to me since distinguishing real blurriness from what I usually see ("That's not the electric light my friend, that is your vision growing dim"--Leonard Cohen) is always a challenge.

I had a couple of amusing encounters along the road. While stopped at the endless light at the first wooden bridge I saw a raptor fly over. I looked out the window and couldn't see it in the sky and quickly realized that it had land atop the utility pole in front of me. Fortunately the car has a big sunroof and I was able to take a shot of this Peregrine Falcon playing peekaboo with me.

Then, just north of the second wooden bridge, where I always stop to search for sparrows and to check the marsh on both sides, I came across a Northern Mockingbird sitting on the side view mirror of a van.


Every few seconds the mockingbird would hop off its perch and attack the mirror, "thinking" somehow that there was another mockingbird there and damned if he wasn't going to chase it away.

The phrase "bird brain" didn't come out of nowhere.

Last year I counted 29 species, this year only 24. There were many Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs that I just had to let go due to distance, but I still had 4 species of shorebirds, which seems fine for this late in the season.
Double-crested Cormorant 25
Great Blue Heron 6
Great Egret 70
Snowy Egret 25
Black-crowned Night-Heron 1 marsh west of 2nd wooden bridge
Turkey Vulture 2
Black-bellied Plover 30
Least Sandpiper 5
Greater Yellowlegs 28
Lesser Yellowlegs 25
Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs 40
Laughing Gull 25
Herring Gull 75
Peregrine Falcon 1 north of 1st wooden bridge
Tree Swallow 20
Carolina Wren 1 Heard
Gray Catbird 2 Heard
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 40
Nelson's Sparrow 1 east side of inlet.
Saltmarsh Sparrow 5
Savannah Sparrow 4
Song Sparrow 8
Red-winged Blackbird 3
Boat-tailed Grackle 75