Sunny, calm and once
again HOT (90)
In spite of the fact that we
left the house at 7:30 AM and were on site a half hour later, the temps were
still pretty warm. Lower humidity
made the morning quite tolerable, however, and we got out and walked the jetty
in search of whatever the inlet might provide.
Our first sighting was of a
large flock of medium sized birds we at first did not recognize. The birds were always at a distance and
it was not until they happened to fly in closer to us that we realized that
they were mostly juvenile Brown-headed cowbirds. They were skulking in the sparse grass on the beach and
would jump up in unison as they attempted to grab some unfortunate insect too
slow to evade becoming lunch. Most of the flock were juveniles. Several adult females were present, but there were no adult males in
breeding plumage seen. In
total, I’d estimate about 40 birds
in this flock which eventually disappeared into the heavy thickets at the
margin of the beach. |
| Juvenile Brown-headed cowbird |
A second bird I don’t normally
associate with the beach flew in and perched on the chain link fence
surrounding the lighthouse…..a Black-capped chickadee. Once again, I did a double-take as I
just didn’t expect to see this bird in this environment.
Finally, I was hoping to find
a Least tern still on territory. I
saw a smaller tern down at the far end of the jetty and followed carefully as
it hunted along the surface of the inlet.
As it turned towards me, I noticed (unfortunately) that the bird had a
solid black forehead….not what I wanted if I was looking for a Least. Nonetheless, the bird was fun to watch
and offered up a pretty nice photo of the bird in flight.
Tomorrow, it’s down the coast
to Smithville and the Brigantine Unit of Forsythe National Wildlife
Refuge. If we don’t get tormented
to our wits end by the Green flies, we should have a very productive day.
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