I just completed three consecutive days of ornithology class field
trips to Craney Island Landfill, and here's a summary of what we saw
(Monday-Wednesday, Sept 6-8:
Raptors - resident red-tails, a few passing osprey, and a Cooper's
and merlin hunting birds in the cells on 9/8.
Ducks - A big influx of northern shoveler (200-300) on 9/7, and the
same 10-20 blacks, blue-winged and green-winged teal that have been
present for weeks. On 9/7 a very early and very nervous female
LESSER SCAUP put in an appearance in the river half way out the
western perimeter road.
Herons - 5 great and snowy egrets, 3 young yellow-crowned
night-herons and 1 immature great blue around the entrance every day,
plus single adult little blue, tricolored, black-crowned night-heron
and green heron in the same area or along the western perimeter
jetties.
Terns - 100-150 Caspian and 50 royals roosting along the western
perimeter, joined on various days by 7 basic plumaged Forster's, a
gull-billed still feeding two young, an adult sandwich with one
young, and some commons still in decent breeding fettle.
Shorebirds - These really put on a great show for the students, as
the feeding is furious and the birds are allowing very close study
despite the size of my classes (14 students in each lab section who
love to slam doors, knock over scopes and gesticulate wildly.) Today
we saw a single WHIMBREL and MARBLED GODWIT circling together and
calling, putting on a great display from every angle, but never
landing. Over the three days numbers were stable with approximately
3000 peeps (with at least 1000 of these being Leasts right now, but
also a half dozen WHITE-RUMPS still hanging in there and enough very
compliant westerns and semipalmateds for wonderful mixed scopefuls
for the students); 500 lesser yellowlegs, 50 greater yellowlegs, 10
willets, 25 dowitchers with only short-billed confirmed, still 10-20
stilt sandpipers, 25 pectorals, 5 ruddy turnstones, 10 sanderlings, 1
red knot, 2 black-bellied plovers, 25-50 semipalmated plovers, and 2
spotteds and the requisite killdeer. Diversity is down a little from
August, but the numbers and amount of active feeding are still very
impressive given how generally foul and toxic the place looks right
now, the huge amount of truck traffic, and the fact that one cell is
too deep for sandpipers and one is dry and vegetated. I searched hard
for the sharp-tailed sand. reported last week but that area is all
dried up. Dan
--
Daniel A. Cristol, Assoc. Professor of Biology
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
(757) 221-2405, dacris@xxxxxx; FAX: (757) 221-6483
http://faculty.wm.edu/dacris/
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.