Delaware: Black-tailed Godwit

After having missed the 2001 Black-tailed Godwit on Long Island because I was away on vacation, this species had nestled close to the top of my rarity priority list in recent years.  There was an early summer BT Godwit in TX this year that had me tempted to fly for it in a piece of gratuitous chasing.

So the red alert buttons went off on Friday while at work, when a report of a Black-tailed Godwit at Prime Hook NWR in Delaware turned up on the NJ email list.  Since Prime Hook is south of Dover it's too far for an after work sprint, so I had to bide my time for an early morning drive.  So I left at 4am from Ewing, off about 2 hours sleep after being out the previous night in Philadelphia.  Uneventful 3 hour drive but even at 6am DE Route 1 held some beach traffic.  Since DE-1 was built, it's a lot faster to get down there compared to the old sluggish Route 13.

Prime Hook Rd is a little north of Broadkill Beach Road, where the Wood Sandpiper was found in summer 2008, although it's all part of the same marshland just inland of the beaches.  On Prime Hook Rd the habitat seemed to have taken a bit of a beating - signs of water crossing the rode with all sorts of debris on it.  The weather was heavily overcast, cool and windy.  Short-billed Dowitcher was the most numerous shorebird, with some small peeps, a couple of Willets and one Ruddy Turnstone.  It took a full hour for the Black-tailed Godwit to appear, apparently flying into an island of exposed mud while many of us were looking elsewhere.  It seemed that it might be an adult female - it wasn't in basic and it didn't look like a juvenile.  The bird was quite restless - it spent the five minutes on the ground mostly preening and then picked up and flew to the west.  The was useful, because the single most dominant ID feature compared to the similar Hudsonian Godwit is pale wing linings (Black-tailed) vs black wing linings (Hudsonian).  There were also the very prominent wing bars.  Later in the day it was found roosting along a neighboring beach road but apparently wasn't found on Sunday.

I've seen lots of Black-tailed Godwits before, including a few wintering birds on my most recent trip to Britain in Feb 2010, but this was my first one in the USA and completed an unlikely Godwit grand slam for the year:

• Marbled Godwit in TX in January
• Bar-tailed Godwit in Alaska (Nome & Anchor River)
• Hudsonian Godwit in Alaska (Anchorage)
• this Black-tailed Godwit

On the way back I stopped at Bombay Hook NWR but the sleep deprivation was too much to do any attentive birding.  I did track down a few worn alternate plumage Western Sandpiper and a small flock of Stilt Sandpipers but missed the more notable Ruff and Hudsonian Godwit.

Jamaica Bay: Ruff

It seems to have been a pretty good year for Ruff (see: eBird data) and over the last week there have actually been two at Jamaica Bay WR: a white-headed one and a more rufous-cinnamon one.  Although I'd reduced birding during the heat wave I braved things on Sunday, was only 90.  The Ruff was seen at distance but seen well courtesy of others' scopes - stupidly I'd forgotten to bring my own which is not a bright idea on the East Pond.  The Ruff was seen on the mud and in flight, where the dark belly on it made it look like an anomalous Black-bellied Plover.  This was only my second Ruff in the USA (first one: a Reeve in Wayne NJ in 2002) and my first in NYC.

Shorebird numbers were decent but this was early July and actual diversity was pretty low.  A few of the more interesting shorebirds: Pectoral Sandpiper; Stilt Sandpiper, were in evidence but it was mostly Dowitchers and Yellowlegs.  Eventually I buckled under the heat after the sun emerged (90 degrees in waders is not fun) and crawled back to the car.

Double-crested Cormorant
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Glossy Ibis
Canada Goose
Mute Swan
American Black Duck
Osprey
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Ruff
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper
Stilt Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Gull-billed Tern
Common Tern
Forster's Tern
Least Tern
Black Skimmer
Willow Flycatcher
Marsh Wren
Yellow Warbler

The Central Park Effect: HBO, July 16th

HBO Documentaries are showing Jeffrey Kimball's The Central Park Effect on July 16th at 9pm.  Jeff spent quite a lot of time shooting video footage in the park, which is almost always much more challenging than shooting photographic stills like I do, since things like warblers rarely remain in focus for very long in either medium.  In turn he's also captured a slice of what it's like to bird an urban hot spot like Central Park, also featuring some of the somewhat more cooperative birders alongside some really good bird footage.

Definitely worth programming your DVR for.