Leonard's Pond continues to delight Rockingham County birders with its
pulling power for shorebirds during migration.
Alerted by Greg Moyers' message that he thought he had a Baird's Sandpiper
there late Wednesday (which he backed up with a photograph I saw just now as I
booted up to send this message), I was at the pond by 9:30 a.m. this morning
and found a classic Baird's feeding halfway back along the shoreline on the
west side. It conveniently lifted its wings and let me eliminate
White-rumped. It looked, and behaved, just like the one that visited here
last fall for
a number of days. This is apparently the second Baird's of this season
here, as
Clair Mellinger reported one several weeks ago but it was only here for a
couple of days, and I have heard no convincing descriptions of any since until
today. Having a scope helps greatly in identifying these birds when they are
not in the front quarter of the pond.
In addition to this bird, these others were present: Mallard 1, Killdeer 9,
Spotted Sandpiper 1, Pectoral Sandpiper 6 (maybe 8, which I counted in one
sweep of the pond but could not match in subsequent sweeps--this is my
all-time high count of Pectorals here), Least Sandpiper 2. In addition to
numerous
Tree and Northern Rough-winged Swallows, there were one Bank Swallow and two
Cliff Swallows flying over the pond.
