While digiscoping a tern on the flats east of Moriches Inlet around 2:00 pm, I looked up and was stunned to see a Black-necked Stilt flying past from east to west. Hastily stashing my small camera in my pocket, I grabbed my SLR, turned it on, and pointed it toward the receding recurvirostrid as it dropped low to a marsh island favored as a roosting site by large shorebirds--I thought it would land. Unfortunately, in my ineptitude, I confused it in my viewfinder with the skimmers and oystercatchers in the area where I expected it to alight. Thus, the several photos I managed were neither centered nor focused, but I hope they will suffice for the increasingly stringent requirements of local eBird review (I noticed today that none of the dozens of Arctic Terns photographed here over the past three weeks have passed muster thus far).
Anyway, the stilt did not land where I thought it did. The only other place nearby that I thought might be attractive to it was the little dreen east of the camper area, but close inspection there proved fruitless also. Other notables around Moriches Inlet today included two breeding plumaged Royal Terns at Pikes Beach, and, on the flats, my first three first-summer Least Terns of the season, two first-summer Arctic Terns, and a breeding-plumaged hendersoni Short-billed Dowitcher, continuing from Sunday, when found by Michael McBrien. Photos will be posted here soon: https://picasaweb.google.com/109808209543611018404/LongIslandMiscellany2013 Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ Washington Monthly<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2012/features/americas_bestbangforthebuck_co039461.php> magazine ranks the College of Staten Island as one of "America's Best-Bang-for-the-Buck Colleges" -- 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/ --
