Last year I hardly went to New York at all (surprising, really, given that the airline I work for has seven daily flights), but this year I’ve been enough to apply for residency. No complaints from me, of course: I really like birding the State (and up until a few weeks ago when Mike moved to Rochester both the other two-thirds of 10,000 Birds lived in the Big Apple which made catching up and planning the future of this behemoth blog of ours that much easier). I’ve been in NY in the heaviest snowfall for - oh, a million years probably. I was there in the spring looking for warblers. And now I’m back again, looking for early migrant shorebirds and getting sunstroke at Jamaica Bay…

 

 

 

Mike may have disappeared north but Corey is still here, and just a couple of days before attending the “Swaro Event” on Rhode Island (which he’ll be posting about pretty soon) he wangled a day off work, left Daisy at home (again), and met me for a morning’s birding. We’d decided on Jamaica Bay after Corey went through my Year List and figured that the best chance either of us had of a) actually seeing something other than sparrows and starlings, and b) adding a few birds to our tallys was to look for waterbirds at the 9000 acre Refuge (I should say at this point that I had no idea how big this place was, and that Corey dragged me - an almost old-man now - over every bloody inch of it, but more of that later…).

Described on the National Parks of New York Harbor website as “the largest bird sanctuary in the Northeastern United States and the best place in New York City to observe migrating birds”, Jamaica Bay is a rich mix of salt marsh, upland field and woods, several fresh and brackish water ponds and an open expanse of bay”. Over 325 bird species have been found here in the last 25 years alone, and we had high hopes (high, but unrealistic) of adding another one or two to teach Mike a lesson for moving away - er, to really put 10,000 Birds on the world map (yes, I know, we’re far too ambitious, what can I say)…

 

 

Of course, if you want to find vagrants then wandering around jet-lagged and/or sleep-deprived on a steaming hot day in late-July is not the best way to go about it, and the JB list today is just as it was the day before. Having said that we did see some good birds, found a whole crowd of interesting bugs (Corey has posted about three of them here), and I learnt what a Beach Plum looks like (it’s an interesting life I lead, I tell you).

So, what were the “good birds” I just referred to? For a start off, both Least Tern and Willow Flycatcher breed at Jamaica Bay (which I find interesting anyway), and though shorebird numbers were disappointingly low (a huge thunderstorm the night before may have moved some on) we did find Least and Semi-palmated Sandpipers, a handful of Wilson’s Phalarope, and a few Short-billed Dowitchers and Lesser Yellowlegs. And for those who might want to know (and even those who don’t), six of those were year-birds for me.

However that little lot was only racked after hours and hours of hard slog and what felt like a walk across the whole of New York State (going birding with Corey? Make sure you have medics with resusc equipment close by) and I’m getting well ahead of myself…

 

Corey: “There’s a path WAAAY over there Charlie. Why don’t we walk round and do that one too…?”

 

So, arriving just after dawn we started birding the Refuge by walking around the dirt track between the open water of the Bay and the East Pond. Considering how remarkably close the site is to New York itself, Jamaica Bay is a place of wonderful calm and relative quiet: Ospreys circled overhead, gulls and terns hunted overhead, a Black Skimmer cut a clear furrow through the still water. and the first of many flocks of Canada Geese welcomed us in the traditional way - by sticking their little tongues out and hissing loudly at us before scuttling off like the cowardly bag of feathers that they really are.

Juvenile Osprey Pandio haliaetus
(aged by the faint ochre colour to the body feathers and the pale tips to the upperwing feathers)

 

Adult breeding-plumaged Laughing Gull Larus atricilla

 

Black Skimmer Rynchops niger

 

With the morning light comes photographic opportunities that disappear as the air warms up and haze builds up, and Corey hurried me on to a narrow neck where he said we had a decent chance of getting photos of terns as they crossed from the Bay to the Pond and back. He was not wrong (he rarely is to be fair), and I managed a couple of flight shots of a bird I rarely see this well - Least Tern.

Adult breeding Least Terns Sterna/Sternula antillarum
(note different moult in wings indicating two different birds)

For those of us on the eastern side of the Atlantic, Least Terns are somewhat enigmatic birds. Split from the obviously very closely-related Little Tern Sterna/Sternula albifrons, there has just been one record from the UK - a single bird recorded amongst Little Terns at Rye Harbour Local Nature Reserve, East Sussex each summer between 1983 and 1992. Separation of the two species is tricky (and complicated by overlap in features between Least and the West African race of Little), and requires both close views and managing to hear the call well: something which many UK twitchers found was harder than they thought when they were trying to hear one Least amongst a cloud of Littles! However, the photos above do show the supposedly diagnostic grey rump (white in Little), and I’ve personally never seen a Little with a fully yellow bill (it’s worth noting though that many photos of Least on the web show a yellow bill with a dark tip like a typical Little).

Regardless of the identification criteria these are lovely birds, and I really like Pete Dunne’s description of them as “A high-strung pixie of a tern”…

More tiny birds we found in fairly good numbers as we wandered slowly round were the two eastern ‘peeps‘ - Least and Semi-palmated Sandpipers. Whilst I tend to see a lot of Leasts in California (when I say ‘eastern’ I mean that Western Sandpipers are pretty scarce in the east whereas the other two species are common), I haven’t seen a Semi-p for years. Seeing the two of them together made separating them relatively easy: Leasts have yellowish legs and thinnish, curved bills compared with dark legs and thicker, straighter, blunt-ended bills in Semi-ps for example.

There are some notable plumage features too, and I’d love to be able to demonstrate the finer details with some spectacular photographs, but unfortunately by the time we got ourselves into a decent position to get reasonably close to them (and, boy, had we ever walked miles by then) the sun had climbed and the contrast levels ramped up to such a level that most of what I did take came out as little more than silhouettes. However, one heavily-worn adult Least did give us decent views on a small patch of mud by a sluice gate, so it’s probably worth posting…

 

Worn adult breeding-plumaged Least Sandpiper Calidris minutilla
(the world’s smallest shorebird, don’t you know…)

 

As I mentioned earlier we had hoped to find a really good variety of shorebirds - recent sightings included Solitary and Stilt Sandpipers - but most seemed to have either moved on ahead of the heavy rains or had found areas in the Refuge with more expansive mud. We did find a tiny mixed group at the far end of the North Pond, and while the species themselves aren’t anything too unusual, I did get a photo which quite neatly illustrates just how small these birds are compared with a Canada Goose. Quite amazing to think how far these tiny birds will have flown by the time they finally reach their wintering areas…

Three ‘peeps’, one Short-billed Dowitcher, and a socking great big goose

 

We really searched quite hard for more shorebirds but struck out pretty much wherever we went. We even checked the lily-covered Big John’s Pond twice and found it absolutely birdless except for a single juvenile Glossy Ibis which fortunately remained oblivious to the fact that Corey and I seemed less than enthused to see it (a little unfairly, perhaps, because under normal circumstances getting such close looks at a Glossy Ibis would have been really nice).

Juvenile Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus

However, spending time at Big John’s did mean I was able to catch up with another rather lovely little animal that I’ve wanted to see since Corey wrote a feature on them a few weeks ago - Gray Tree Frogs. (Even I appreciate how lucky I am that Corey wrote about them on the 3rd of July and just twenty-five days later I’m in NY looking at them.)

“Gray” Tree Frogs can change colour depending on the background they’re sitting on (much like chameleons, but not as quickly) and we very fortunate to find one perched on a green reed close to the boardwalk down to the hide. I’ll leave you with the photo I took of the emerald amphibian that resulted - quite a beautiful little thing I think you’ll agree…

A “green” Grey Tree Frog Hyla versicolor

 

So that was our morning. What else did we see? In a nutshell we dipped on a singing White-eyed Vireo, I had brief views of my first Ruby-throated Hummingbird of 2008 and we picked up my first Bonaparte’s Gull of 2008 amongst a large flock of Laughing Gulls, we saw some beautiful wasps which I’ll post about another day, and saw about 60 bird species in total - and, all joking aside, Corey proved again what a great bird-guide he’ll be when he decides to make a career change! We may have been footsore and sunburnt, but it was all very enjoyable and I added another nine to my Year List (taking me to 1012). Just over 10% of the world’s bird species by the end of July…wow!

Next week I’m off to San Francisco for some birding with my old friend Jack Cole, followed by another trip to Hong Kong, then back to Nigeria (Lagos this time): in between I’m going to tell you about a very exciting conservation project that we’ve been putting together and post some more photo-galleries. Corey and Mike of course will be writing too.

Good enough reasons to come back to 10,000 Birds on a regular basis? I hope so, I really hope so…

 

Bird List, Jamaica Bay: (New for the year underlined)
Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps 2; Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus 20+; Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias 3-4; Little Blue Heron Egretta caerulea 2; Great Egret Egretta alba 1+; Snowy Egret Egretta thula 20+; Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax c)8-10; Yellow-crowned Night Heron Nyctanassa violacea 1; Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus 10-12; Mute Swan Cygnus olor 150+; Canada Goose Branta canadensis 100+; Mallard Anas platyrhynchos 40-50; American Black Duck Anas rubripes 3-4; Osprey Pandion haliaetus 3; American Oystercatcher Haematopus palliatus 3-4; Semipalmated Plover Charadrius semipalmatus c)10; Short-billed Dowitcher Limnodromus griseus 4-5; Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes 3-4; Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularia 3; Willet Catoptrophorus semipalmatus 1; Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres 1; Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla 5-8; Least Sandpiper Calidris minutilla c)10; Wilson’s Phalarope Phalaropus tricolor 3; Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis c)10; Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus 2+; American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus 5+; Bonaparte’s Gull Larus philadelphia 1; Laughing Gull Larus atricilla 200+; Common Tern Sterna hirundo 10+; Forster’s Tern Sterna forsteri c)20; Least Tern Sterna antillarum c)10; Black Skimmer Rynchops niger 2; Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura 1; Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris 1; Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus 2; Willow Flycatcher Empidonax traillii 4; Eastern Phoebe Sayornis phoebe 1; Eastern Kingbird Tyrannus tyrannus 1; Tree Swallow Tachycineta bicolor 20+; Northern Rough-winged Swallow Stelgidopteryx serripennis 2; Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica 100+; Cedar Waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum 2; Carolina Wren Thryothorus ludovicianus 3-4; House Wren Troglodytes aedon ; Marsh Wren Cistothorus palustris 2; Grey Catbird Dumetella carolinensis 40+; Northern Mockingbird Mimus polyglottos 3-4; Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum 3; American Robin Turdus migratorius c)10; Fish Crow Corvus ossifragus 2; Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris +; American Goldfinch Carduelis tristis 2; Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia 4-5; American Redstart Setophaga ruticilla 2; Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas 3-4; Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia 10+; Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis 2-3; Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus 3+; Boat-tailed Grackle Quiscalus major 4-5; Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula 2-3; Brown-headed Cowbird Molothrus ater 2+; Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula 1