Birding Was Good

Yesterday, Cyndi and I made our first trip into the refuge in about three weeks. We birded beginning late morning along Lighthouse Road and walked Tower Pond to the south end of Mounds #3. High tide in the bay was at 0739, so it was still high enough to keep shorebirds pushed into the pools.

East River Pool – Am. Flamingo remains at its distant north location; a single female Greater Scaup; Killdeer; Short-billed Dowitchers; Gr. Yellowlegs; 

Stony Bayou #1 – Semi-palm, Wilson’s (with chicks), and Bl-bellied Plovers; Least, Semi-palm, Wh-rumped Sandpipers; Dowitchers, Willet; Least Terns; flyover Wood Stork. May well have been more to see, but I didn’t want to scope into the sun.

Lighthouse Pool and East Salt Flats – If you are time limited and want to hit one spot on the refuge, make it Lighthouse Pool. The pool: a pair of Black-necked Stilts were attendant to four golf ball-sized chicks; four beautiful, breeding plumage Avocets; a female Greater Scaup, two Red-breasted Mergs; 3 Marbled Godwits; other previously mentioned shorebirds. The flats: Black Skimmers; Forster’s and Royal Terns; Ruddy Turnstones. The flats run hot and cold for birds and are currently worth perusing for less common tern species.

Picnic Pond – a quick view on the walk out Mounds/Tower Trail found no birds, but watched a good sized Eastern Diamondback swimming east to west on the north side of the pond.

Mounds #3 – The south end of Mounds #3 had a good representation of most of the previously mentioned shorebirds, including a single Wh-rumped Sandpiper. The salt marsh adjacent to Mounds #3 had many Seaside Sparrows up and visible, including very close, long looks at a parent feeding and generally interacting with two fairly advanced young.

The birding was good, the insects were minimal; drink water and just ignore the heat.