The Fastidious Dunlin

Dunlin Carrying Slipper Shell Snail

Today, it was a beautiful day.  Even though the temperature was in the 30s, but there was no wind.  We traveled down to Gooseberry where the main species that we saw were Dunlins.  The Dunlins were either feeding, along the water line or in the wrack or higher on the beach in the sand where they were investigating slipper shells that got washed up and found the snails that live in the slipper shells.  Some Dunlins were just resting in the sun and getting warm.

One of the Dunlins that was feeding higher on the beach in the sand was very fastidious.  It would pull a snail out of the slipper shell, and if the snail was covered with sand, before eating the snail, the Dunlin would take the snail in its beak and run down to the water, where it would wash the sand off the snail before eating it.

Dunlin Carrying Slipper Shell Snail

Dunlin Carrying Slipper Shell Snail

Dunlin Watching the Slipper Shell Snail in the Water

Dunlin Watching the Slipper Shell Snail in the Water

Dunlin Watching the Slipper Shell Snail in the Water

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Birding and Photography at Gooseberry Neck and Horseneck Beach

Snowy Owl on Top of the Dune

After I dropped my grandson off at work, I swung up to gooseberry neck, hopefully to see and photograph again the snowy owls that are present there. A birder who was observing the shorebirds did tell me that a snowy owl was on top of the towers. I walked up to the towers but there was no sign of the snowy owl. I walked out to the west side of the island and followed the beach all away up to the end and then came around down the east side of the beach. There were no signs of the snowy owl. I came across purple sandpipers feeding, so I sat down observed and took pictures of them. Further down on the beach toward the parking lot a single sanderling was feeding on the wrack and even further down a large flock of dunlins and one purple sandpiper were feeding.

Purple Sandpiper Foraging

Purple Sandpiper

Sanderling With Food

Dunlins and a Purple Sandpiper Foraging in the Wrack Line

I met a gentleman walking up the beach and we discussed about  the snowy owl locations and that I had not seen any as yet. He asked me if I had been over to Horseneck Beach, I replied no I hadn't. He then told me the location of a large snowy owl that had been sitting on top of a dune. When I reached the parking lot, before I left I went and checked out the rocks on the west side of the island hoping to see the snowy owl, but no luck. I packed up the car and traveled over to the parking lot at Horseneck, got my equipment ready and walked down to the left, past large building, across the old parking lot to W. Beach Rd. and turned left and headed down W. Beach Rd. I met a nice couple walking up W. Beach Rd. who asked me if I was looking for the snowy owl. When I replied yes I was they described exactly where it was in relation to where we were standing at that point. I follow their directions look to my left and high on the dune was the snowy owl. I spent time observing and photographing this beautiful bird. Most of the time it had its eyes almost closed, but rotating his head and watching in all directions. As I was just ready to leave to nice women were starting to walk up the ramp that leads to parking lot one, I called and asked them if they were looking for the snowy owl. They reply guess they were, so I told them to come to where I was. One of the ladies was visiting from Pennsylvania and the other one lives in New Bedford, both who have never seen a snowy owl. I've pointed out  the owl location and left two  happy women.

Snowy Owl on the Dunes with Eyes Open

Snowy Owl

Snowy Owl

Leaving Horseneck I met the first gentleman that told me about the Horseneck snowy owl and he told me just after I left the snowy owl appeared on the rocks on the west side of Gooseberry and then flew over to the campground at Horseneck Beach

Herring Gull Lifting off

Today December 31st is the last day for 50% of of Topaz Star effects
Star Effects

Feeding Frenzy

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During my visit to Gooseberry the other day, I spent time watching it photographing the groups of Gulls and Peeps feeding in the water and on the wrack line. The gulls were catching slipper shells from the water, bring them in on land and trying to eat the gastropod that is inside the shell. The peeps, mainly Dunlins would check out the slipper shells and eat what was left inside. I do believe the recent storm had turned up the bottom and brought the slipper shells close to shore.

Dunlin carrying a slipper shell

Herring gull with slipper shell

Dunlin feeding on slipper shell

Dunlin feeding on slipper shell

Dunlin feeding on slipper shell

Dunlin feeding on slipper shell with a ring-billed gull in the background

Dunlin feeding

Herring gull feeding on slipper shell

Herring gull dropping a slipper shell

The common slipper shell, Crepidula fornicata, is a species of medium-sized sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Calyptraeidae, the slipper snails and cup and saucer snails. They are often found, sometimes living stacked on top of one another, rocks, on horseshoe crabs, shells and on dock pilings. What is interesting about the slipper shells especially the stacked ones is that the largest and oldest animal at the base of the pile is a female and the younger and smaller animals are the males. If the female for some reason dies, the largest male becomes the female. For this reason that is why they are known as a sequential hermaphrodite.

Slipper shell looking underneath showing the shelf that gave this shell its name

Top view of slipper shell

Pair of slipper shells

"The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men"

Sunrise

"The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men". Now why do I say that? My plan on Tuesday morning was to wake up early and again try to capture images of the comet Ison, however, I set the alarm for quarter of 3 AM but did not turn the alarm on. So, I awoke at 5 AM, quickly got dressed and drove out to Gooseberry. The sky was getting lighter and the brilliant moon didn't help, so no pictures again of the comet. However there were great pictures of the sunrise.

Really, the only bad thing that occurred was that my Nikon D800 started acting up and given the error messages and intermittently would stop auto-focusing. When I got back to the car tried it on a different lens the same thing happened. Oh well, camera off to Nikon for repair. I had bought the camera, when it first was released in the camera has approximately 57,000 shutter activations since then.

The moon illuminating the clouds

Sunrise captured with a 500 mm lens

After pictures of the sunrise, I relaxed and waited from my birding companion Doug to show up and we did our Tuesday morning birding trip. Right in the parking lot at Gooseberry, was our first surprise, a Rusty Blackbird. Despite the brisk wind, birds were flying over. Juncos and songs powers while hopping around feeding. As we slowly walked out toward the tip of Gooseberry, we saw out on the water large groups of White-winged Scoters, Eiders, Common Loons and Horned Grebes. What was interesting was most of the rocks in the water with cormorants usually rest were covered with water or having large waves splash over them. I like the way the water was crashing over the rocks so I made photographs of it happening. The Phragmites were were really blowing in the wind, and since I used 1/1250 second shutter speed I almost completely froze the Phragmites. Near the tip when we went out onto the beach, we did see a small flock of peeps flying and landing back down on the shore. With the spotting scope we were able to identify them as Sanderlings and Dunlins. When we reached the tip, we found a flock of the least 100 or more Sanderlings and Dunlins. I sat down to be low to the ground and started moving slowly toward them, when suddenly they all took off in to a massive flight. Doug told me up a Peregrine falcon passed by and set them off. I got some nice photographs of the birds turning and swirling in the air. They came back down and started resting. On a rock just off the shore were a group of Purple Sandpipers. As I slowly approached them being low to the ground, they suddenly flew from the rock and landed just in front of me. Bingo, more pictures. As we were returning back to the parking lot, we saw a goldfinch on the ground feeding and the goldfinch say just of head of us and company us part of the way back to the parking lot.

Rusty Blackbird

American Goldfinch

Dunlins and Sanderlings resting on the beach

Great Cormorants in Flight

Waves crashing over the rocks in black and white

Waves crashing over the rocks

 

 

 This picture is the same as the black and white picture above it. I learned a new technique yesterday watching a webinar from Topaz. What you do is open the original picture in Lightroom as a Smart object, apply your filters that you want as Smart filters, open Topaz black and white also was a Smart filter and process your adjustments, and then change the blending mode of the filter to luminosity. This gives a great feel to the picture.

Dunlins and Sanderlings in-flight

Phragmites blowing in the wind

A small plant trying to survive

Great Cormorants in Flight

Dunlin and Purple Sandpiper

Ruddy Turnstone

A Sad Event

When I arrived at Allens Pond Audubon Sanctuary to be involved and photograph monarch tagging, I was notified by one of the staff members about a sad happening.  She had gone out early to Gooseberry in order to see if the monarchs were swarming and on the way back found 3 Dunlins that had been hit by an automobile on East Beach Road in Westport.  It was at the time of extremely high tide and the shorebirds must have been pushed up onto the road and someone just sped through and had hit them.

The photographs show the Dunlins and and help point out some of their distinguishing features.  These Dunlins are in winter plumage, in the summer they are more reddish brown and have a large black patch on the belly.  Dunlins are a medium-size, deep-chested shorebird with a small head, short neck, and a long bill, which tapers to a fine point and droops at the tip.  The wingtips fall short of the tail tip.

 

In flight they show a broad white wing-stripe with dark central tail feathers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I plead with those people driving near the ocean to watch out for any birds on the road and please avoid hitting them.

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