Big day birding

Today was a really exciting day. We saw 2 life birds in 2 different states. I was in the car, on the road at 6:53am to go to Cove Island, Wildlife Sanctuary in Stamford, CT to see the Forked-tailed Flycatcher. It's been there for most of the week. We were welcomed by this sign. Encouraging words for a birder. The bird was there and there are bathrooms! What more could we want.

Finding the bird was no problem, as soon as we walked in to the Wildlife refuge, there were volunteers standing there. They had the bird in their scope.. As with any almost any rare bird in the NYC area, all you really have to do is spot the birders. Then locating the bird is a snap.

The forked tailed fly catcher (now I can say) was one of those birds I would see pictures of in Peterson or Sibley's Field Guides, and think, Well that's a bird that I won't probably ever see. That's why it was really exciting to actually see it. Larry and I thought the same thing about the Painted Bunting.

But there is he is!

Back to the Fly Catcher.

He is a great looking bird!

Especially when he spreads his tail.

We stayed in Connecticut for about an hour watching the bird. Around 9am it was getting really crowded with bird watchers. They've had over 250 birders see the bird from all over the country. People flew in (pardon the pun) from Florida and Las Vegas! All I did was drive 43 minutes on I-95.

There has been so many good bird reports this week, but the best still seem to be coming out of Jones Beach, on Long Island. They reported seeing a Northern Shrike, a juvenile Red Wing Crossbill. a Common Ground Dove, and an American Golden Plover. Last week we tried to see Ground Dove and the Plover, but weren't successful. Larry programed the Tom-Tom and off we went.

Jones Beach is a hard place to bird. It wasn't designed to walk around. It was designed to drive to, park your car and then go to the beach. So birding there can be a big pain. First we drove to the big parking lot, called West End 2 and walked in the pines and scrub between the West and East side of Ocean Drive. It was okay. We met another birder, who told us that they saw a Little Gull off the inlet. I thought I wouldn't be able to pick out a Little Gull from a Big Gull, so we didn't even try to find the bird.

Back to the car. We drove over to the Coast Guard Station where, we got really good views of a White Wing Scoter and a female Black Scoter. We walked to the Teddy Roosevelt Nature Center from the Coast Guard station. As soon as we got to the "comfort station" a non birder type person, in the NAA-NA-NA-NAA-NA sing song says "I saw the Shri-ike!" AAAARRRGGGH did we miss the Northern Shrike because we chose to go the Coast Guard station first! Double AARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!! We met a birder on the boardwalk that over looks the scrub and sand where piping plovers breed who told us, He was just here 15 minutes ago. He was sitting on the fence. AAAARRRRGGGHHH. Those are the words a birder just doesn't want to hear. You just missed him!!!!! AARRRRGGGHH!!! Larry and I spent all day at the landfill next to the Dekorte Nature Center in New Jersey, driving back and forth on Disposal Road looking for this bird. The Northern Shrike. We weren't giving up that easily, I had all day.

As we walked on the boardwalk, Larry says Shari! I got the bird. We watched the bird in our scope, in our binoculars, naked eye for a while.

We walked back to the car and had lunch!