12:00pm. Weather: sunny, bright & warm.
The Lloyd Centre & Park are nearby sanctuararies that I'd been hoping to check out for a while so I went to the State Beach with Kim's father. However we assumed, wrongly, that it was the same place as the Lloyd Centre but we had a nice walk with some good species.
Carpark:
Double-crested Cormorant - flying about the beach.
Eastern Wood Pewee - I spotted it in a small tree across the carpark, fairly drab but it characteristically darted back & forth in search of insects before flitting away.
Beach:
Semipalmated Plover - we were tipped off by other walkers that these confiding birds were on the beach just off the path so we diverted to take a look & were rewarded with some close views as at least half a dozen scuttled about the surf.
Eider - on the inshore waters.
Loop Walk:
Osprey - overhead as we walked the path approaching the pond.
Tree Swallow - all over the park on what seemed to be a steady migration, another new species to me.
George's Pond:
Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Great Blue Heron & more cormorant, plus my first mosquito of the day.
Beach:
Herring Gull, Ring-Billed Gull.
Saltmarsh:
Snowy Egret - elegantly feeding in the muddy run-off from a small area of saltmarsh at the northeast of the park.
Least Sandpiper - a couple of waders were also picked up feeding around the egret but it took a while for me to be happy with the identification of my first 'peep'. These were smaller than the semipalmated plovers I'd seen earlier, plus photos I took showed a lack of semipalmated toes, & slightly lighter legs than black (though still dark, not yellow, presumably from the mud), plus a slightly down-curved bill & generally more streaking on the breast.
Kildeer - within yards of the sandpipers & a much easier bird to identify!
Leaving the park:
Starling, Mourning Dove.
16 species, 3 new.
No comments:
Post a Comment