Today, Earth Day was celebrated at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, where the weather encouraged participants to wear short-sleeved shirts, or even just T-shirts ! The Eastern L.I.Audubon Society was one of the sponsoring organizations (under the leadership of the QWR) and had the fun task of leading the scheduled bird trips at both 11:30 AM & 1:30 PM. The first walk (lead by Eileen Schwinn & myself) had just about equal numbers of kids & adults...totaling ~ 8 participants, in all. They all appreciated what they saw and learned, including nice looks at a House Wren, Purple Martins, Tree Swallows, Downy Woodpecker and especially the 2, Great-horned Owl nestlings, living in an old Osprey platform nest ! The 1:30 group was smaller in size, consisting of only a Father & Son team and your's truly ! Group 2 managed to see all of the birds group 1 saw, plus an additional sighting of a Pine Warbler. While on this walk, Simon (who is all of 9 years old) correctly called out Purple Martin, Tree Swallow, most of the common species, and even found a Box Turtle, in addition to an unidentified, small, brown Butterfly - I got a photo, so maybe we'll be able to come up with a name ! Sure sounds like Simon and NYSYBC are in each-others
Following the Earth Day celebration, I went down to Dune Rd. {Post La. Bridge, Quogue to the Ponquogue Bridge, Hampton Bays, and saw some evidence of migration, namely, 1 highly-colored Black-bellied Plover,a flock of 8 Semipalmated Plovers feeding , and an American Bittern. This bird was actively feeding on the n/s marsh, opposite house # 28, ~ 1/4 mile w/o Tiana Beach. Cheers, Bob -- 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/ --