Of Shorebirds and Sparrows

As part of my efforts to ensure I stay engaged and active in retirement, I set a goal of exceeding my previous top Virginia bird count for the year. As spring migration wraps up, most birds that will visit Virginia have shown up somewhere. I saw a lot of ducks and wintering birds and a fair number of spring migrants here along the coast. A recent trip to the mountains brought me several more species, especially warblers, that are hard to find along the coast. At the end of May I was within 20 species of my goal. However, I have probably passed the point where it is easy to see several new species at once. We are now in the period where each new species needs to be searched out and focused trips are used to see them. A quick review of species seen locally that I haven't seen yet highlighted three that are in the same habitat so could be seen on one trip. My wife and I decided to combine that with another aim of ours which is to visit birding spots we haven't been to before or at least not in a long time. eBird showed these three species were seen at two marsh/beach areas about an hour north of us where we haven't been in over a decade. Our target birds today were a pair of shorebirds, semipalmated plover and semipalmated sandpiper, and the seaside sparrow. None are unusual in our area but you need to be in the right habitat at the right time to see them. 

The first stop was New Point Comfort Natural Area Preserve and the road leading out there passes through some open marsh. As we drove along, I saw a large shorebird sitting in a dead tree. As we stopped it flew off to a power pole and was soon joined by a second.

Pair of willets on a power pole

Back on the side of the road where the willet had been sitting there was a small pool that had some small shorebirds at the back side. They were too far away to clearly identify with binoculars so we parked on the side of the road and grabbed a spotting scope. As we watched them a few moved closer and a few more birds flew in. In this group was a black-bellied plover, a few dunlin, and several semipalmated sandpipers (target bird #1).

Black-bellied plover with some semipalmated sandpipers

Back across the road my wife heard the song of the seaside sparrow, our second target species. These are cute birds but they sit at the top of short grass in the marsh as they sing. So you have to look along the tops of the marsh grass and hope it isn't blocked by taller grass. We searched for several minutes and eventually saw the sparrow shape just peaking up. It was still pretty far off and we wouldn't have been able to identify it by sight along (although there isn't much else that would sit up like that in the marsh grass).

We continued on down the road to the end point of land that has a short boardwalk and a boat launch. Down here things were pretty quiet. A few terns flew around and we saw a couple of kayakers fishing.  We walked back along the road to a wooded stretch and saw several nice song birds and this northern flicker just sitting on a branch up against the trunk.

Flicker 

While it seemed quiet, we did see 38 species and two of our three targets.

Moving on to Bethel Beach, the day had become quite hot and the walk along the beach was a bit of a slog. At the far end of the beach we saw a couple of birds poking around a flooded puddle. Here we saw a few more semipalmated sandpipers. Around the backside of an inlet was a part that is roped off and a bit of research revealed that piping plovers had nests there. We looked around but didn't have any luck seeing one. We really needed to stay and do a long search and hope for movement as they blend in to the sand very well. We did see a lot of least terns flying over the inlet and end of the beach.

On the way back to the car there were royal terns flying up and down the beach.

Royal tern on the wing

The day ended with some refreshing ice cream as well as two of our three target birds. I'll have to find another time or location to see a semipalmated plover.