Headed out to the East End specifically for the Montauk Brown Pelicans and Sagaponack White Ibis. Was successful on both counts.
Only the juvenile of the two BROWN PELICANs seen yesterday was on the western jetty at the inlet to Montauk Harbor when I arrived at 9:20. It was forced farther out onto the jetty and then over to the east jetty by the approach of 6 fisherman lugging gear. Once on the east jetty it spent some time preening and then settled down for a nap on a lower rock, making it barely visible among all the Herring and Great Black-backed gulls. The older pelican seen by others yesterday never showed. I searched for it at vantage points farther inside the harbor without luck. One of those vantage points was the dock behind the Crabby Cowboy Café. Among the many birds on the floating aquaculture gear just offshore were 3 Common Eider and a Green Heron. A check of the docks on Fort Pond Bay (seen from Duryea's Lobsters) also failed to find the other pelican. Two Black Terns were still lingering in Napeague Harbor, seen from Lazy Point. The juvenile WHITE IBIS was at the previously described field of the Smith Corners Preserve (Peconic Land Trust). It spent most of the 1/2 hour I observed it stationary at the field's south end, facing into the stiff SW wind, which put it's back to me. I was about to give up on getting at least a decent look when the bird began to preen. It did so for a couple minutes and then began walking slowly toward Sagg Pond. In ~10 seconds it passed from sight behind the last few rows of corn that remain on the field. Made a follow-up visit to Heckscher State Park (3:15-4:00) on the way home to check on the water levels in Field 7 and to see how many shorebirds were lingering. Not surprisingly. the grassy areas had dried up since yesterday and the puddles in the parking lot had shrunk as well. Nearly all of the larger species present yesterday were gone (except for 1 Pectoral Sandpiper and 1 Lesser Yellowlegs, but many Semipalmated and Least sandpipers remained, utilizing the puddles to feed and bathe. Rich Fried, who was present when I arrived alerted me to the presence of the 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers reported here by Mike Cooper. Eventually got great looks at both birds. During the past 2 weeks Heckscher has harbored at least 1 Baird's Sandpiper and at least 2 Buffies. Added to the 12 species I saw Friday that makes 14. With the passage of the Labor Day weekend, the beach at adjacent field 8 will likely stop getting groomed and become attractive to "grasspipers" as well, including American Golden Plovers, like the 2 I found last October among the regularly occurring Black-bellied. In the meantime I'm hoping for a bit more rain to replenish the Field 7 shorebird habitat. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
