Negri-Nepote, pre-deluge, Apr 22nd

Yellow Warbler was singing from the neighborhood when I was getting ready to depart for Negri-Nepote despite threatening weather and a day's worth of rain headed up on the southerly winds.  It didn't quite make it to my yard list or my year list, since I never saw it and it didn't come quite close enough.

Instead, in heavy cloud and beginning drizzle I headed out to Negri-Nepote Grasslands (Franklin Twp) to check for shorebirds in the small pond there.  Field Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, House Wren and Common Yellowthroat were all singing.  Along with four Mallard males in the pond were four breeding plumage Greater Yellowlegs, a nice find, and the real prize was a Pectoral Sandpiper at the back of the pond.  No Wilson's Snipe, recently reported here, but I don't usually see Pectoral until the fall.  As the rain started to fall I retreated to snag my first seen Common Yellowthroat for spring migration, close to the parking lot.

Brig 7/23

Short birding trip (truncated by heat and Tour de France coverage). I went zero for everything on the rarity front at Brig despite checking Glossy Ibis facial skin color (for White-faced) and there being feeding frenzies at very low tide at a few of the sluices (Forster's Tern, Laughing Gull, Double-crested Cormorant).

Shorebird numbers were up, mainly Semipalmated Sandpiper (abundant, thousands) and Short-billed Dowitcher. My best birds were Whimbrel and Pectoral Sandpiper, both year birds, before heading for cover and air-conditioning.

Brigantine NWR, August 28th

Making a little of a lethargic start I opted to go check out shorebirds at Brigantine NWR, with high tide expected around the middle of the day. There was a large flock of Tree Swallows at the Gull Pond tower turn-around but the tower was under construction.

Recent rain seem to be reflected in the pools being relatively high on water, although the north-western pool looked like it had been drained down to provide more shorebird habitat. I came away with not too much diversity, at least in part because I went around prior to high tide and because the driest pool put the shorebirds deep into the heat haze. Best shorebirds were a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers, missing the Buff-breasted and Avocets seen later in the morning. Spotted Sandpiper, both Yellowlegs, Willet, Semipalmated Sandpiper (abundant), Least Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plover and Ruddy Turnstone rounded out the total. Ospreys and two Peregrines were the raptors seen. At the "tern sluice" there were no Common Terns but a nice extra were two juvenile Least Terns and a molting adult - a species I see infrequently there. Other terns included abundant Forster's, a few Caspians, and Black Skimmer. Two Blue Grosbeaks at the dogleg and a fast moving Ruby-throated Hummingbird were two other notables.

Northern Wheatear, DeKorte Park, Lyndhurst NJ

Northern Wheatear is moderately common in Britain so I've seen a bunch of them, but only one previously in the US - a quick look at the often-elusive Smith Point Park bird on 9/22/01. So even though I had seen one in GB on 9/11 I went looking for the DeKorte Park bird, finding it relatively quickly and getting good looks at what appears on the face of it to be a first fall immature of the Greenland ssp. This is the first time I've birded the impoundments at DeKorte and there were a good number of shorebirds present. Predominantly Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs there were also Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Pectoral and Stilt Sandpipers, Semipalmated and a single juvenile American Golden Plover. Not bad for a morning, and a Northern Harrier was over the phragmites on the way out.

Jamaica Bay, Sept 4th - Wilson's Phalaropes

Ahead of the deluge that was TS Hanna I decided to do some afternoon birding at Jamaica Bay. Tide levels were non-ideal, approaching low tide. The numbers of shorebirds on the East Pond were modest, and 90% of them were Semipalmated Sandpipers. Few Least, and few Semipalmated Plovers. But this being early September there were one or two interesting shorebirds around, with Stilt Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper. One juvenile Pectoral was fairly tame, the White-rumped somewhat, and the Stilt Sandpipers relatively spooky. There were a few juvenile Red Knots in the mix.

Not a great birding experience, but decent for photography now that the water levels have dropped a bit. As I was leaving, at sundown, I finally dug out the spotting scope from my camera pack and confirmed my suspicions - there were 3 Wilson's Phalaropes feeding along the north-east corner of the Pond - I could see them as gray-white blobs using binoculars, standing out from the Yellowlegs.


Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Gadwall
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Osprey
Semipalmated Plover
American Oystercatcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Red Knot
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
White-rumped Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper
Stilt Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Wilson's Phalarope
Forster's Tern
Black Skimmer
Northern Waterthrush