Bird Walk Allens Pond day prior to hurricane

Saturday, August 27, 2011 Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary scheduled a bird walk. What made this walk more interesting that it is occurring the day prior to the arrival of hurricane Irene.
I traveled down early to Westport Massachusetts to observe what was happening with the ocean around Gooseberry. The causeway to Gooseberry was closed to vehicle traffic, so I parked at the parking lot with numerous other cars and observed the increasing tide and waves coming in and pounding on the rocks. At the same time fog was starting to increase into the area.
I went to the sanctuary and prior to the walk took some scenic pictures to demonstrate how the area looked.
I also found a spider web cover with dew.

Finally put myself in a picture using the camera timer

Two other people and myself met our leader Lauren and we started out to bird the area at East Beach and observing over to Barney's Joy across the cut that is the inlet to Allens Pond.
Our first stop was at the culvert where we observed the Osprey sitting on the nest shrouded in fog. Traveling further down and stopping to look over the marsh and Allens Pond there was a large number of different species present. There was a flight of glossy Ibis that pass by and since I was using my binoculars I did not get a chance to photograph them. Of wading birds there were also great blue herons, snowy egrets and great egrets. Double-crested Cormorants was swimming and standing in the water.  There were a number of terns fishing. At first, we thought they were all common terns, but on closer inspection a lot of the terns were foresters terns. A very good find!
Reaching the end of East Beach a number of shorebirds was seen including whimbril's, Sanderlings, semi-palmated plover's which were feeding in the surf.


At the very end of Barney's Joy, there was a large number of gulls and terns feeding in the rough water. With binoculars and scopes we started to inspect the terns that were present to see if we could find any rarities. Yes! We found black terns which are listed as a rarity for this area. A most excellent find.

Black and Forester's Terns

Further down on Barney's Joy there were four oystercatchers resting. also on Barney's Joy were a  black-bellied plover and greater yellowlegs feeding.

Observing at the rocks off of the beach, the waves were starting to crash over them. Tomorrow, when the hurricane arrives it should be a very interesting scene however I will be at home safe rather than sorry.

For the entire trip we saw approximately 33 different species of birds. It was a very good morning of bird watching