I did a shorebird survey this morning at Big Egg Marsh in Queens starting just after high tide around 6:55 AM.
I spent about 2 and 1/2 hours and recorded 11 species of shorebirds. The tide was not as high as I would have liked and that meant birds were on the peripheral of the marsh making viewing somewhat challenging. Based on flock flights, I estimated around 600 shorebirds in total. The highlights were several hundred Red Knots, with many of them in very nice breeding plumage. I tweeted a short video clip which could be viewed here https://twitter.com/birdingdude/status/727909582610247680 showing some of the Red Knots. Non Shorebirding highlights included a couple of Clapper Rails and an Ammodramus sp. which I never got a good handle on for an ID. I ran into Isaac Grant while leaving and give him an update on what I saw. Lucky dude to get Curlew Sand later which obviously would have topped the Red Knots. Cheers, -------- "I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence." ~ Frederick Douglass 風 Swift as the wind 林 Quiet as the forest 火 Conquer like the fire 山 Steady as the mountain Sun Tzu The Art of War > (__/) > (= '.'=) > (") _ (") > Sent from somewhere in the field using my mobile device! Andrew Baksh www.birdingdude.blogspot.com -- 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/ --
