With rain threatening (and shortly thereafter, making good the threat), Tom
Saunders and I went out for a few hours of shorebirding this afternoon,
1630-1830. It was a great thing, at last, to get 3-4 inches of rain in this
part of
the world, which has seen almost none through July and August otherwise.
The fields are flooded, and rain is in the forecast through Saturday, including
the remnants of _Ernesto_. Potato fields were most productive in southern
Northampton County for shorebirds today (list below), the highlight being the
many (16) juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpipers cavorting and displaying, showing
their brilliant, white underwings to one another, singly, then both wings, as
though they were on the nesting grounds (surely they were just sporting, some
minor aggressive play). At one point, a group of six was just over a truck's
length from us. Is there a finer shorebird species? Another interesting
bird was a year-old Stilt Sandpiper, which looks about intermediate between a
juvenile and a winter adult, and a molting adult American Golden-Plover, just
the
second of the fall season here. Shorebirding should be good here for the
next week, if the forecast holds.
Location: Capeville area, Northampton County, VA, US
Observation date: 8/30/06
Number of species: 41
Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias 1
Great Egret - Ardea alba 2
White Ibis - Eudocimus albus 4 (feeding in farm field)
Black Vulture - Coragyps atratus 2
Osprey - Pandion haliaetus 1
American Kestrel - Falco sparverius 1
Black-bellied Plover - Pluvialis squatarola 26
American Golden-Plover - Pluvialis dominica 1 (adult)
Semipalmated Plover - Charadrius semipalmatus 178
Killdeer - Charadrius vociferus 58
Greater Yellowlegs - Tringa melanoleuca 6
Lesser Yellowlegs - Tringa flavipes 54 (many juveniles)
Ruddy Turnstone - Arenaria interpres 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper - Calidris pusilla 16
Western Sandpiper - Calidris mauri 1
Least Sandpiper - Calidris minutilla 130
Pectoral Sandpiper - Calidris melanotos 35
Stilt Sandpiper - Calidris himantopus 1
Buff-breasted Sandpiper - Tryngites subruficollis 16
Short-billed Dowitcher - Limnodromus griseus 5
Laughing Gull - Larus atricilla 600
Herring Gull - Larus argentatus 7
Gull-billed Tern - Sterna nilotica 29 (adults with begging juveniles were
all over!)
Caspian Tern - Sterna caspia 3
Rock Pigeon - Columba livia 2
Mourning Dove - Zenaida macroura 12
Chimney Swift - Chaetura pelagica 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker - Melanerpes carolinus 1
Eastern Kingbird - Tyrannus tyrannus 12
Fish Crow - Corvus ossifragus 6
Horned Lark - Eremophila alpestris 4
Purple Martin - Progne subis 1
Tree Swallow - Tachycineta bicolor 1
Barn Swallow - Hirundo rustica 25
Northern Mockingbird - Mimus polyglottos 1
European Starling - Sturnus vulgaris 200
American Redstart - Setophaga ruticilla 2
Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis 1
Red-winged Blackbird - Agelaius phoeniceus 2
Common Grackle - Quiscalus quiscula 45
Brown-headed Cowbird - Molothrus ater 110
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://www.ebird.org)
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
