Parker River National Wildlife Refuge

Gadwal in the Pannes

On Tuesday morning, the family and I left early to beat the traffic through Boston on the way to visit Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.  Because of the breeding season for terns and piping plovers all the beach accesses in the refuge, were closed to traffic.  Not until we reached Sandy Point State Reservation were we able to walk out onto the beach.  We very slowly drove up the road from the entrance, stopping and photographing different birds, as we visualize them.  We walked the number of the trails enjoying the sights and the weather.  Mostly what we saw were the breeding birds.  Meeting a number of birders, they all remarked on the lack of migrants compared to a few days ago.  Apparently apparently the migrants continued on their northward journey.

Easton Kingbird

Bobolink

Willet.  On the Top of a Tree

At Sandy Point, we saw a few shorebirds, including black-bellied plover, dunlin, and my first of the year piping plover.  There was an adult great black-backed gull feeding on a crab, the interesting part, the crab was still alive.

Piping Plover Feeding

Black-Bellied Plover

Great black-backed Gull With a Crab

We met a birder at Bill's Forward Blind, who told us about some other locations in the area that we did not know about, since we are mainly southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island people.  After leaving Parker River, we end up traveling down Rough Meadows Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary in Raleigh Massachusetts, which we explored for only a short time.  The reason was it was the middle of the day, there was a bright sun and we were hungry.  Looking at the sign of the sanctuary trails, there were a number of different ones to walk, plus if we go down the road further we end up on the backside of Parker River.

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Shorebird Migration

Sandeling

Because of a recent email from my friend Paul Champlin "For those who don't remember or otherwise know about this, unlike most places in Massachusetts, Horseneck Beach (from the mouth of the Westport River to the public beach itself) hosts tens of millions (if not more) mole crabs. They vary in size from pinhead size to thumb size, and live near the surface of the sand exclusively in the wave-break zone. the density and variability in size of these critters allows shorebirds to gorge themselves on them with ease. Though this beach is visited by thousands of people per day (sometimes tens of thousands) the shorebirds often continue to find it beneficial to remain on the beach (though mornings until 9ish and evenings after 6pm) are best on good beach-going days. On poor beach-going days, the birds can be found all day long. This congregation of shorebirds tends to vanish by mid September when Peregrine Falcon migration bumps up a notch." the other day, Doug and I visited Horseneck Beach, to see what shorebirds we could find and for me anything else to photograph.

By the way, if you are there before 9 AM, there is no one at the guard shack to collect the parking fee or after 6 PM.  If you are Massachusetts resident and are 62 older you can apply for The MassParks Senior Citizen Pass.
Anyway, when we arrived, there were hardly any people at the beach, despite it being a beautiful sunny day, but that may be because there was no swimming allowed because of the rip currents from hurricane/tropical storm Bertha.  Waves were crashing onto the shore and there were a couple of people surfing.

Surfing

Besides the usual species of gulls, everywhere up and down the shoreline, there were shorebirds feeding.  Ranging in size from the large whimbril down to the little semipalmated sandpiper.  Most of the time, all I had to do was sit down on the sand and watch the shorebirds running by me.  Because the whimbril, and the Willit were further up the beach, we walked toward him stay in high in no way from them so we would not disturb them.  Then I got down low and slowly move toward them so I could photograph all these beautiful birds.  I captured always images utilizing my Nikon D800 with a Nikon 70-200 mm lens with a 1.7 converter, ISO 640 and manual mode settings on the camera.

Black-bellied Plover

Semipalmated Plover and Sandeling Flying

Willet

Whimbril

Semipalmated Plover

Now Horseneck beach is not the only place with a shorebirds are now starting to congregate.  The shorebirds can be found anywhere along the coast, and this is a wonderful time of year to go out and enjoy the seashore and observe and photograph the shorebirds, as they make their way down toward South America.  You can find shorebirds in all different plumages ranging from breeding plumage, all the way to their basic winter plumage.


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Action around the Marsh

Herring Gull Being Chased by Willets

My plan for today was to do some macro photography, hoping the weather was like yesterday, where there was no wind blowing.  However, when I arrived at the field station at Allens Pond Sanctuary, although a lot of the flowers in the butterfly garden were in bloom the wind made it nearly impossible to photograph.  I tried a few images, but gave up and decided I would take my long lens and go down and see what was happening on the pannes, and over the marsh by the culvert.

The most interesting thing happening was watching the willets and red-winged blackbirds protecting their nesting area against larger birds.  Even when on egret just flew over, the red-winged blackbirds would chase them.

A herring gull came down and landed in the pannes, and was immediately attacked by a pair of willets, who chase the gull back over to the marsh.  They were probably protecting their nest and/or chicks.

The Willet Almost Landed on the Herring Gull

Further down in the pannes, a great egret had been feeding, when suddenly it moved over to a spot, which must've been near a nest, because a male red-winged blackbird started attacking the great egret until it moved away.

Great Egret Being Harassed by a Red-Winged Blackbird

Great Egret Being Harassed by a Red-Winged Blackbird

There was other action taking place, however, I felt that are was just worth it.  Watching and enjoying the interactions of nature rather than taking pictures.  Also, remember watching and observing the behavior of creatures will give you a better idea in the future of what that creature made do situation, which will a better opportunity for a great picture.

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Some of the Findings on Our Gooseberry Walk

Yellow Warbler in Rosa Ruguso

Now that I did my rant about the trash on Gooseberry, here are some of the pictures that I obtained during our walk.  The day was bright and sunny, with a cool breeze.  It started out in the high 60s and then ended up in the low 80s.  We saw about 40 different species of birds, many were on the wing, and migrating.  In fact, starting at sunrise, there has been a lot of different species of birds flying in from over the water.  The birds that landed were nervous and flighty, so it was hard to get pictures of many of them.  At one point, in the wrack, there were a number of Ruddy Turnstones, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover and Some Sandelings.  Ospreys were flying overhead.  The blackberries was starting to turn.  Japanese honeysuckle, which is an invasive plant, was still in bloom.  As we were leaving down the Causeway, on the left out by the large rock, was a male black scoter and some common eiders, including a partially luestic eider, which at first glance thought maybe an immature king eider, but after looking at its picture on the computer, confirmed that was a common eider.

Robin with prey in its beak

Carolina Locust blends in well with the rock

Partial Luestic Common Eider

Herring Gull

Spotted Sandpiper

Ruddy Turnstone in the wrack

Balanced Rock Art

Japanese Honeysuckle  an invasive plant, but is pretty

Willet

Yellow Warbler

A Mornings Birding at Wellfleet Bay Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary

Today is Thursday and if you have been following my blogs.  Usually, you know that on Thursday's I go birding with my good friend Doug.  Today was no exception, we met at my house at 615 with Doug bringing delicious Starbucks coffee and we set out to bird on Cape Cod.  On the way.  We decided we would bird first at Wellfleet Bay, Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary.  We arrived before the visitor center open, however, the trails are open beginning it sunrise.  Before we left the garden and the feeders.  We had seen 17 different species.  Perhaps the most interesting was a juvenile vesper sparrow, Juvenile Eastern Towhee who was perched on the sanctuaries solar panels. The hardest part of the day was trying to identify some of the sightings due to, the large number of juveniles.  We slowly made our way down toward the beach.  Prior to reach in the beach, the number of birds that we saw were low.  On reaching the beach area, there was a number of different shorebirds there, including Eastern and Western Willet's, Whimbrils, Greater Yellowlegs, plus a large number of different species out on the flats as the tide receded.  A saltmarsh sparrow gave us a great view of itself by perching on the marsh grass for a couple minutes, and allowing the to take its picture.







Near the shore was " a murder of crows".  Murder is the name given to a flock of crows.

Monarch was feading on flowers and there was extremely large number of Atlantic Marsh Fiddler Crabs, I observed a pair of male fiddler crabs fighting over a hole.

On the way walking back to the visitors center, at the pond, there was a beautiful green heron present, which was searching for food.

When we finally finished birding Wellfleet, we wanted to go further up on the Cape toward Provincetown, however, traffic was so backed up, so we decided to head off the Cape, but also decided to stop first and have some lunch.  We stopped at the Lobster Shanty on route 6, which is across the road from where the Cape Cod National Seashore Visitors Center Is located.  We had lobster salad, which was so large, and furnish me not only with lunch, but also with supper.

Red-winged Blackbird

Least Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Semipalmated Plover

Song Sparrow

"Tip-toeing Through the Sand" Western Willet

Western Willet and Short-billed Dowitcher

Western Willet and Short-billed Dowitcher

Whimbrel

Willet - Eastern