Another warm and sticky morning. My visit may have been too soon after
low tide to encounter the maximum numbers of shorebirds.
0810 to 0920 EDT: scanning flats from small mound along N shore of
creek; from base of sound wall at W end of apartments; from small mound
at upstream end of shore between creek and the dry mitigation "pond";
and W and E from GW Parkway bridge.
27 - 28 C; hazy sunshine; NW 10 km/hr; humid; low tide 0630;
extensive E-side flats still exposed when I left;
# East of GW Parkway / # W of Parkway;
Canada Goose 18 / -
Mallard 3 / 1
Great Blue Heron 9 / -
Great Egret 1 / 8
Snowy Egret - / 2
Little Blue Heron - / 1 (im)
Osprey 16 / 2
Killdeer - / 30
Greater Yellowlegs 1 / -
Lesser Yellowlegs 1 / 2
Semipalmated Sandpiper - / 10
Least Sandpiper - / 23
Laughing Gull 55 / -
Ring-Billed Gull 190 / 30
Herring Gull 2 / -
Great Black-Backed Gull 8 / 2
Caspian Tern 2 / -
Forster's Tern 8 / 2*
. . . .
*: One of the Forster's Terns feeding W of the Parkway had a
surprisingly yellow-orange (more yellow than orange) beak and a
relatively short, seemingly white tail (the outer rectrices may have
been missing). At first glimpse, the my mind jumped to "Least Tern,"
but the size, shape, black cap through forehead, and two-toned
upperwings (light gray inner, silvery white outer) quickly corrected
that mistake.
Sherman Suter
Alexandria VA 22307
ssuter aaas org
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