Having not seen a Buff-breasted Sandpiper this season on the sod fields, I
decided to try yesteryear's best bet for finding migrating,fall
"grass-pipers"...before the advent of sod farms ! If you were looking for
Black-bellied or A.Golden Plovers, Whimbrel and Pectoral or Buff-breasted
Sandpipers you visited the Sagaponack potato fields. Granted, the birds
were harder to find as they moved along the ~ 6-8" rows that remained after
the potatoes were dug...but they were there, for the finding ! Likewise, if
you were after Hudsonian or Marbled Godwits, White-rumped, Baird's, Western
and Stilt Sandpipers, you visited both Mecox Bay and Sagg Pond. Today, I
did all 3 locations with nice results, albeit, I'm still without a BBSA !
I started at a closed Mecox Bay, finding: 1 Black-bellied, 2 A.Golden, 1
Piping & 5 Semipalmated Plovers; 2 Greater & 2 Lesser Yellowlegs; 1 Willet;
5 Sanderling; 3 Semipalmated & 1 Least Sandpipers; a few of the 3 common
gull species; 61 Foster's & 2 Black Terns - one of which, had some kind of
huge growth/object attached to one of its toes, although the bird can still
fly. While enroute to Sagg Pond, I next approached Mecox from its eastern
side, with the only new species being a very entertaining Belted Kingfisher.
Similar to Mecox, Sagg has not been opened to the ocean recently, however,
the beach and limited sandbars held a good variety of birds: 2 A.Golden, 2
Piping and 3 Semipalmated Plovers; 7 Killdeers; 8 Sanderling; 1 Pectoral
Sandpiper; 2 Laughing, ~ 10 Ring-billed, ~ 35 Herring, 4 Lesser
Black-backed,* ~ 40 Great Black-backed Gulls; 2 Royal & 1 Foster's Tern
and another B.Kingfisher.
* 3 adults, still in full breeding plumage, the 4th, a 2nd winter bird.
On the whole, I enjoyed the day's outing, but it came at a price. As I was
driving around Sagaponack, on familiar lanes with the names of Daniels,
Hedges and Parsonage, I found only one potato field in the condition
described above. Rather, most of the potato fields that haven't been turned
into massive homes, have been switched into corn ! While this conversion
might equate into more geese to peruse later in the year, it certainly
short-circuits the shorebird season.
The last notable bird of the day (seen as I headed home) was a Cooper's
Hawk, in flight, over Bridgehampton.
Cheers,
Bob
--
NYSbirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm
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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
