Pathetic! That about sums up the Shorebirding this morning on the East Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens NY. Birding only the northend as way of checking the water level, I was disappointed that on this day August 1st, I could not find double figures of Dowitchers given that the water level has gone down.
The 250 + Short-billed Dowitchers, that I had the other day--most of them must have pulled out because I ended up counting about 8, all on the East Side of the pond, which I was lucky to spot while scoping up the pond from Dead Man's Cove. i could not make out any flock movement on the southend so I am doubtful there was any volume of shorebirds down that end. All of this was before and during high tide so where are the thousands of shorebirds? Brigantine in NJ, is loaded with shorebirds. Where are ours? Have we missed them due to the water level situation. I keep hoping that we will see a big wave of shorebirds but it is getting harder to remain optimistic. When in weather like this I am on the East Pond in August looking at Snowy Egrets and wondering about photos for an Egret quiz instead of looking at and studying shorebirds, you know the situation is a dire one. I'll keep posting reports from the pond and hopefully the news will get better. In non Shorebird news, I had an adult Tri-colored Heron--a different bird from the immature reported earlier in the week. Also a female Red-breasted Merganser was another interesting sighting. For those of you thinking of visiting, I requested and got the boot washing station setup near the visitor's center. If you visit and it is not setup, please ask the rangers. Sometimes they could forget depending on who is manning the front desk. Keeping the faith! -- 風 Swift as the wind 林 Quiet as the forest 火 Conquer like the fire 山 Steady as the mountain Sun Tzu <http://refspace.com/quotes/Sun_Tzu> *The Art of War* <http://refspace.com/quotes/The_Art_of_War> (\__/) (= '.'=) (") _ (") 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/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
