The Action at John's Pond, Jamaica Bay

There wasn't a lot going on in the heat at the West Pond at Jamaica Bay but John's Pond had a lot of action. A fishing Great Egret and 3 juvenile Black-Crowned Herons and an adult Black-Crowned Heron. There were a few foraging assorted shore birds.

Got it

A tasty morsel

Down the hatch

Now for a little preening

When we first arrived there was an adult Black-Crowned Night Heron and three juveniles.  The adult took off quickly but the three juveniles stayed around the pond. The juveniles are also Black-Crowned Night herons. The immature Black-Crowned Heron is browner and their spots are larger  then the immature Yellow-Crowned Night Heron which is grayer and more finely speckled as well as having longer legs.  Two of the juveniles had quite a game over a stick. You can see other smaller shore birds in a few of the pictures.

The other juvenile stayed on this branch and preened the whole time.

Courtship Dance of Least Terns and Marsh Makers at Rocky Point

All right, it took me more than overnight to put these up. After my morning at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, I went to Breezy Point with my friend Andrea. First we walked along the ocean side of Breezy. There were several black bellied plovers, seagulls and willets. But the best were seeing the 3 American Oystercatcher chicks. Too cute!


After lunch we walked along the Bay from the  Bay House toward the bridge. It was a beautiful day. As we were walking along we came to the Marsh at Rocky Point. This was a favorite of ours last year. We would check on the willets that were nesting there. We didn't see any willets but through our binoculars we saw a young man who looked to be cleaning up the marsh: Our hint he was wearing waders, long rubber gloves and hauling wood junk. Now I had heard of a couple of days this spring when some groups helped out to clean up the marsh but I didn't have any idea that someone was volunteering to do this on an ongoing basis. Anyway the young man started toward us so we waited and greeted him. Shervin started the project of cleaning up the marsh in November of 2010. He has a blog that follows the progress of the marsh cleanup. This is very exciting and Andrea and I will be helping out at the next volunteer day you can bet. You can view Shervin's blog at marshmakers.blogspot.com

After meeting Shervan we continued our walk. We saw several Black-bellied Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, Great Egret, Green Heron, Least Terns, Brant Geese, Merganzer, Oystercatcher and Spotted Sandpipers.


Spotted Sandpiper (Actitus macularia)

    

Semipalmated plover



Herring Gulls (acting like the Doublemint Twins)

America Oystercatcher (Haematopus pallistus)

 

The best part of the walk was the courtship of least terns that we observed. I wish I had video for the first time, but I think you'll get the idea.

BwBTC outing-Birding in CT

After two days of computer glitches, I think she's working again. I'm behind many others who have already blogged so eloquently about the Saturday 7/11 BwBTC outing. So here are a few of my pictures. I found it hard to get too many close ups, I see the need for a scope.


Egret roost in Stratford CT. Great Blue Heron

2 Great Egrets flying - Hammonasset Beach State Park, CT


Yellow-Crowned Night Heron - Looking for a good meal

Found it - a nice crab
On that note we ourselves went to lunch at Marnick's in Stratford, CT. Many of us indulged in our own shell fish meals - the lobster roll was delicious!