Jamaica Bay, August 28th

Despite a really strong showing with Ruffs early in the season, Jamaica Bay has seemed to be pretty anemic when it comes to more regular shorebird species.  Recent deluges (e.g. weekend of Sept 9th) have probably filled up the pond enough to eliminate any more shorebirding until next summer.

I made three visits in late August culminating in the best visit on Aug 28th.  On Aug 26th the best bird was a single White-rumped Sandpiper amongst Semipalmated Sandpipers.  On Aug 27th the south end was fairly slow (Least Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover) but at least I picked out the American White Pelican all the way at the north end (it's huge and that yellow bill sticks out even through the heat haze over the full length of the pond).

Finally on the afternoon of Aug 28th I had a little more luck - some cooperative common species at the entrance to the north end (Semipalmated Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover) and then an accumulation of shorebirds at the end of the first spit - north of what is called Dead Man's Cove which despite its boot-sucking nature has not killed any birders as far as I'm aware.  It's covered a few in mud, however.

South of where I was standing the American Avocet was seen in the distance and then an American Golden-Plover flew in.  After it settled down I made an approach on it, a whole flock of Black-bellied Plovers flew in - they hardly ever are tame enough to accumulate on the spit in front of you, but this time they came in after a (very experienced pro) bird photographer managed to flush them all off the adjacent spit.  In with this flock came two Red Knots - an adult and a juvenile - which periodically would wander down the shore line towards us (it was us by this time - two more photographers including the pro had joined me).  So I spent a "pleasant" afternoon lying in the mud getting chewed on by biting flies taking pictures of plovers, knots, the occasional sandpiper and a few Common Terns.  The Avocet and the American Golden (my first adult on the East Pond) were by far the most interesting, but for once this year there was a good number of shorebirds lined up in front of me.

Forsythe/Brigantine NWR: Yellow-headed Blackbirds and grassland shorebirds

The problem with being social is that it eats into the early morning birding starts. In this case I got a tardy start at Brigantine NWR - a shameful 8:30am. I did two loops around the auto loop, and on the first loop mostly ignored shorebirds in the NW pool as I headed to the NE "pool" which is mainly a grass flat now. En route I noticed that most of the Forster's Terns were in or near basic plumage now. It was high tide, and apparently there were a lot of schooling fish since there were multiple cormorant-tern-heron feeding frenzies at locations in the southern pool. There were a lot of Snowy/Great Egrets, Forster's Terns and Double-crested Cormorants at these frenzies.

There were also a lot of swallows. Thousands. At one point I looked across the impoundements and got a sense of the magnitude since as far as I looked the air teemed with Tree, Barn and Bank Swallows - there were a reasonable number of the latter too.

Outside the impoundments I found a group of at least 10 Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows perched up and apparently waiting out the high tide - this being comfortably my all time high count. A mix of adults and immatures and accompanied by a vocal Clapper Rail perched up in the saltmarsh.

Finally I made it around to the dog leg, dodging caterpillars crossing the tour road as I went, and scanned the grass flats. Heat haze was cutting into visibility already, but I found two American Golden-Plovers and a Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the first pass, and then just as I settled on a Baird's the group took flight. I found a more cooperative Baird's Sandpiper a little later, as well as a total of 4 Buff-breasted's. The surprise was finding two Yellow-headed Blackbirds sitting on the edge of the grass flats as I searched for Baird's and Buff-breasted's. They sat there for a while letting me assess bill and tail length to make sure it wasn't some aberrant Boat-tailed Grackle plumage (too yellow in any event). First time I'd seen these in NJ.

On the second tour around the auto loop I added a few shorebirds: White-rumped Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Short-billed Dowitcher and Lesser Yellowlegs to the list, but it was getting hotter and I didn't linger. Notable absence was Willet - presumably all the Eastern ssp birds have left and the Western ssp ones have yet to take their place.

American Black Duck
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Whimbrel
Black-bellied Plover
American Golden-Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
White-rumped Sandpiper
Baird's Sandpiper
Buff-breasted Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern
Black Skimmer
Tree Swallow
Bank Swallow
Barn Swallow
Yellow Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow
Yellow-headed Blackbird