A lot of birds left last night as evidenced by the VERY LOW number of birds observed and counted today on the East Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. It is very possible that the 4 AVOCETS and 2 WILSON's PHALAROPES from yesterday were in the departure flight as neither species were seen today during the time I was at the East Pond.
Short-billed Dowitchers were the biggest exodus with only an estimated 500 seen on the pond. While peep numbers are down, they were still being represented well with about 1000 Semipalmated Sandpipers. Black-bellied Plovers have increased with my highest count for the season with 132 seen today. Stilt Sandpipers were down from Sunday's spectacular high count of 85 to 34 seen today. Despite the lack of numbers a total of 17 species of shorebirds were observed today. Other Notable shorebirds from today's observation included LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS (2), PECTORAL SANDPIPERS (2) WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPERS (9) RUDDY TURNSTONES (4) and RED KNOT (1). In addition, among the many FORSTER's, COMMON and LEAST Terns on the North Island were 2 GULL-BILLED TERNS. Other highlights from yesterday included 9 juvenile WESTERN WILLETS who stopped in very briefly on the pond before taking off in a North Easterly direction. I will have a more detailed report + photos of the AVOCETS and PHALAROPES on my blog later today. Good Shorebirding in Queens! Andrew Baksh Queens, NY 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/[email protected]/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/ --
