Hi all, This afternoon, Mary Beth Billerman and I took a trip down to West End to see what shorebirds we could turn up. It was approaching high tide, and between the tide and the people on the island, there were no shorebirds evident on the small island by the Coast Guard Station. We then went to the swale on the south side of West End 2 parking lot. With the rising tide, shorebirds continued to fly into the swale. We eventually found the BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER that Doug had found earlier in the day. It was foraging actively the entire time we were there, mostly at the south end of the swale, moving back and forth between the southeast corner and the southwest corner of the swale. Also present were about 160 Semipalmated Plovers, mostly adults (but with some juveniles), 40 Semipalmated Sandpipers (again, mostly adults, but with at least 3 juveniles), 10 Sanderlings (adults) 1 Least Sandpiper, 1 Greater Yellowlegs (flyover), and 1 Black-bellied Plover (flyover). Also foraging in the swale were 3 Horned Larks.
The Buff-breasted Sandpiper was present during our entire stay of about 2 hours, but was at times out of view. On our way home along Wantagh Parkway, a Merlin flew over our car moving south. Good birding, Shawn Billerman -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
