Sachuest Salt Marsh

I have written about Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge in the past: <http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2011/01/sachuest-and-short-eared-owls.html>
<http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2011/02/day-of-birding-and-other-items.html>
http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-is-common.html.
Today I am going to discuss another important part of the refuge that is Sachuest Salt Marsh. The marsh is about 45 acres in size at present. In the past the marsh was used as a municipal dump and in 1989 a restoration project was started to restore and maintain the salt marsh into its original shape. Salt marshes do require frequent title flashings to help maintain their biological character.
The marsh is located in between Second and Third Beach in Middletown Rhode Island and is best viewed from the parking lot of Third Beach. In fact the day I was there, I was joined by at least a dozen birdwatchers that came down to view the migrating shorebirds. The marsh is a great resting area for shorebirds as they make their trip both northwards in the spring and southwards in late summer and early fall.
The Fish and Wildlife Service have built a blind at the far end of the marsh, but it isn't open to the public as yet. The splined will help viewing the birds that do congregate in the far corner.
In order to best view the birds, besides binoculars a spotting scope is extremely useful. For photography I find that a long lens of between 300 to 500 mm plus teleconverters is needed especially to obtain photographs of the small shorebirds.
There is always a moderate to large number of gulls present at low tide on the marsh. Wading birds feed in the marsh and I had four different species present today. The species present were Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, and a Green Heron.Great Blue HeronGreat Egret
 
                                                                                                                                                  Snowy Egret
Morning is a great time for viewing because the Sun is at your back, also, it is best at prior to low tide and just after low tide. This helps concentrate the birds into a smaller area. At full low tide there are large stretches of open mud and the birds are more spread out.Double Crested Comerant

Savannah Sparrow  
 

Semipalmated Plover



Semipalmated  Sandpiper
The refuge is located in Middletown, Rhode Island. Take route 1 South to route 138 East, over the Newport Bridge. Take the Newport exit and pass through downtown Newport on route 138A. Once through the downtown, you will pass First (or Newport) Beach. Just past First Beach, take a right onto Purgatory Road. Take a right onto Sachuest Point Drive and follow to the end, which will bring you directly into the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge parking lot. For your GPS coordinates use, 41.479652, -71.243998. In order to reach the salt marsh, just before the Middletown campground on Sachuest Point Drive, take your left onto Third Beach Road and follow the road to Third Beach the right side of the parking lot at third Beach abuts the marsh.
Green Heron

Churchill-the finale

As promised here is the final installment from my trip to Churchill Manitoba. Our interactions with the birds were absolutely phenomenal, by moving slow and low even with our group size we were able to get close to the birds. The Lapland Longspurs were present for a few days because there was a north wind holding them from migrating further north. They were hanging around the granary ponds and the railroad tracks up by the granary. The pictures were taken by laying on the ground in between the sets of railroad tracks, at present there were no trains running up to the granary.
Following the same techniques we were able to get close to the common eiders and view the eider sitting on her nest. The same technique was used for the long-tailed ducks.
A Bonaparte skull just sat on her nest and ignored us. The semi--palmated plover was nesting at the tern colony and utilize the "broken-winged display" to keep us away from the nest. The broken winged display is also utilized by killdeer's and some other shorebirds.



The female Willow Ptarmigan in some ways is a prettier bird than the male.
We visited the parasitic Jaeger a number of times and it always put on a great flight display for us. The bird that was flying was on a mound a distance away from the bird that was nesting.
The pine grosbeak and lesser yellowlegs were hard birds to photograph since the sun was right behind them and there was no way of getting a picture with a side lit bird or a front lit bird. Because the lesser yellowlegs was jumping up onto tops of spruces with the sun right behind it, I made the picture a high key.




Churchill "was also the site of the Churchill Rocket Research Range  part of Canadian-American atmospheric research. Its first rocket was launched in 1956, and it continued to host launches for research until closing in 1984. The site of the former rocket range now hosts the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a facility for Arctic research. " This is a picture of one of the old rocket launch buildings.



Old ship and plane wrecks at Churchill are left where they occurred.
In October and November many people come to Churchill to see the polar bears and they are driven around in tundra buggies.
The easiest way to come to visit Churchill is by air.