This morning and early afternoon I birded Plum Beach and the East Pond at Jamaica Bay. At Plum Beach the highlight was a fading adult HUDSONIAN GODWIT that I found right around 7:00 AM and fed actively for most of its stay until it suddenly flew off at 7:43 AM. It headed south and gained altitude quickly with very fast, purposeful wing beats, and I lost sight of it as it was already over Fort Tilden headed for the Ocean. Shane Blodgett was luckily able to get out there and get a look at it before it departed. After I lost sight of it I turned around to scan the rest of the shorebirds on the flats and almost immediately 2 AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVERS popped into view, although these also flew off (to the west, and not nearly as high) shortly afterwards. Also very notable at Plum were 423 Black Skimmers roosting, 37 of which were juveniles (these were "relocated" by an off-leash dog a couple of times). Numbers of shorebirds weren't great, but diversity was all right (12 species) for Plum. Other notables at Plum were my first of the season juveniles of Sanderling (3) and Semipalmated Plover (1). There was also a Field Sparrow in the dunes.
Floyd Bennett Field was just about devoid of migrants of any kind (1 Baltimore Oriole, and 1 Eastern Kingbird at the Community Garden). I ran into Ken Feustel shortly after my arrival on the East Pond and we birded the east side from south to north and then back. Some birds have definitely moved out from the reports I saw from Sunday, but it seems that a good number of juveniles have arrived in that time. Highlights follow: Baird's Sandpiper (first seen briefly north of the Raunt, then much more cooperatively at the south end right near the entrance where it still was when we departed (in a 5 calidris species flock). American Avocet (continues on the west side between the second and third spits at the north end) Wilson's Phalarope (1 juvenile, north end, mostly on the east side about adjacent to the Island. No sign of the other two) Western Sandpiper (9+, with one adult and at least 8 juveniles with a pretty wide variation in plumage) Pectoral Sandpiper (3 adults, 2 at the north end, one on the west side of the south cove) Sanderling (Adult, south flats, Ken picked out this bird when it landed with several Semi. Plovers for a couple of seconds before the flock took off and flew out of sight. A good bird for the East Pond) Ruddy Turnstone (2, including my first juvenile of the season) Northern Pintail (3) Blue-winged Teal (75+) Stilt Sandpiper (20, only 2 juveniles) White-rumped Sandpiper (~35 adults) Good Shorebirding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Temporary archive: http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
