2017 August » BirdQuiz.net

American Golden-plover

Aug 312017

It was the kind of day where I just had to go out birding. The skies were clear, the temperature was ideal (in the mid-80’s), and the winds were light and coming from the west. There HAD to be something good out there, right? And even if there wasn’t, it was a perfect day to search for them, so Jeanine and I ventured out to the Sedge Islands again.

The Sedges have been good to us this year. Every trip there yields good numbers and quality of birds at close range, and there’s always the possibility of a rarity. For me, an average day at the Sedges beats a good day almost anywhere else nearby. Today my sights were set on either American Golden-plovers, which are popping up at the sod farms in nearby counties, or on one of the really unusual terns.

We arrived later than usual, with the tide already rising. Our first pass through the main flats didn’t yield anything remarkable, with the highlight being a large gathering of 70 Royal Terns. We couldn’t turn any of them into a Sandwich Tern, like we did last week. At the inlet it was relatively quiet, although its always nice to see a flock of around 30 Brown Pelicans (‘normal’ for the Sedges), and a scraggly Red Fox patrolling the beach, trying to figure out how to convert one of the Common Terns into a meal. Returning back to the main flats, most of the birds now were concentrated into a relatively small area as it approached high tide. The goal of finding an American Golden-plover became more realistic upon seeing a sizeable flock of Black-bellied Plovers gathered on the edge of the water.

Here is a portion of the gaggle of Plovers that we found today. Can you spot the American Golden-plover in the crowd? It’s in there somewhere. We’ll come back to this photo later. Notice all the plumage stages on these plovers. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Jeanine and I spotted the bird at about the same time. I don’t always know what makes a tough bird stand out, but something stood out about this bird. The Cape May school of birding would just say that it was the GISS (or ‘jizz’) of the bird. Most of the time we prefer not to see an interesting bird walking away from us when we’re working on an ID, but in this case it was very helpful, since a definitive field mark is the black undertail of the American Golden-plover compared to the white undertail of the Black-bellied Plover. That sealed the case.

I’m not always hoping to see the underside of a bird, but in this case it was helpful to see those remaining black splotches on the undertail.

We tried to approach closer, but the bird had a comfort zone, and as soon as we approached 10 ft closer, it ambled 10 ft further away. It was a fun game that we repeated a few times (we sneak closer, it shimmies further; we try a different direction, it goes in a different direction, etc. etc.) , but ultimately we were happy with our views and switched to being distracted by the terns (more about them tomorrow).

The field guide view of American Golden-plover. The combination of gold, brown, and white highlights on the feathers was delightful to view in person.

American Golden-plover feeding. Here you can see the undertail molting from black to white. Black-bellied Plovers have an all-white undertail.

American Golden-plover in flight.

Before we leave for today, it is worthwhile to compare American Golden-plover (AMGP) and Black-bellied Plover (BBPL) in more detail; what can we look for when trying to find an AMGP in a group of BBPLs? The field guides mention several field marks. American Golden-plover is a tad smaller and has a slightly smaller bill than Black-bellied Plover, but the size difference is very tough to distinguish unless you are fortunate to have a direct side-by-side comparison, and apparent size changes depending upon posture. I would consider size a secondary trait, and not one that I would use to scan through a flock. The bill size can be particularly important when the birds have completed their molt into non-breeding plumage, but again, it would be tough to use as the primary search criterion. As we mentioned earlier, the undertail color is important, but relies upon at least some remnant of breeding plumage. If the birds are in breeding plumage, this would be a good mark to search for, but it requires that they are facing sideways or away from the birder. For example, in the photo at the top of this post, all the birds are facing into the wind towards the camera, so the undertail is not visible. In flight, the underwing pattern is definitive, but that often relies up on a fleeting glimpse. All of these field marks help. Searching for golden tones to the feathers doesn’t work for me, since that seems very lighting-dependent and plumage dependent. For example, a flock of Black-bellied Plovers at this time of year can have some individuals that look nearly gray and other that have a tinge of brown. I think that we can all agree that in the photo below, even the Black-bellied Plover looks somewhat golden.

Here’s a pretty nice side-by-side comparison of an American Golden-plover on the leftt, with the more common Black-bellied Plover. Note the slightly smaller size, smaller bill, and speckled undertail of the American Golden-plover.

So what is the best field mark to start with? For me, the quickest way to scan through a mixed flock is to search for the bird with the prominent white supercilium that highlights a darker cap. Let’s re-examine the original photo that was at the top of this blog entry. Click on the photo below for a larger version, and then scan quickly looking for that bold supercilium and see if you can find the AMGP now.

Can you spot the American Golden-plover in this crowd? Click on the photo to get a larger version, and look for the prominent white supercilium.

OK, in the next photo the group has shifted slightly, and the bird is now more obvious, with the spotted undertail visible and the shorter bill. See, it’s not that hard after all, is it?

OK, now that it turned sideways and I added an arrow, the American Golden-plover is more obvious. Click on the photo for a larger version.

This was the first American Golden-plover reported in the county this year, and there were only two reports in 2016. So it definitely qualifies as a nice find.

A Pair of Sandwiches

Aug 212017

Today was the day for the solar eclipse. Unfortunately, we are not located anywhere near the path of totality, and here in NJ only 74% of the sun was going to be eclipsed by the moon. To ‘celebrate’, Jeanine and I headed out canoeing into the Sedge Islands, which were nearly devoid of people. Right on schedule, the skies darkened somewhat and then started brightening again. (A sidetrack: are you as amazed as I am that we can predict these astronomical events with such stunning accuracy? Thank you, scientists!) Shortly after finishing our post-ecliptical lunch, we found ourselves at the inlet where a sizeable congregation of birds were scattered on the exposed flats. We were scanning the flock, hoping for one of the rarer terns. After all, tomorrow would be one year since we found our first Sandwich Tern here in NJ. Sometimes it feels somewhat pointless to sort through Common Tern after Common Tern, hoping for something different. Yet there it was: after scanning a hundred-and-one Common Terns, we found a tern slightly larger than the numerous Commons, yet smaller than the nearby Royal Terns, with a black crest on back of its head. And to clinch it all, it had a long black bill with a yellow tip. Sandwich Tern!

An adult Sandwich Tern. The black bill with a yellow tip makes it very distinctive.

That was great, but right next to it was another tern of the same size, with a black crest on back of its head and a long black bill. TWO Sandwich Terns!! Yowza!. An adult and an immature side-by-side. As if to confirm that they were unusual, both of them had silver bands on their right legs, although the bands were too small to get any identifying code, and my scope was at home.

Adult and immature Sandwich Terns side-by-side. Seeing one of these in New Jersey is a treat; seeing two of them together is more than I could have hoped for.

It was interesting to speculate if we would have recognized the immature bird if the adult wasn’t nearby. Occasionally they would fly off and it wasn’t so easy to re-locate the immature tern even though we knew it was somewhere in the flock.

The two Sandwich Terns in the midst of the flock of Forster’s and Common Terns. Could you pick them out? Note that they are slightly larger and lighter and longer-legged than the more numerous mid-sized terns

A size comparison of Sandwich Tern, which is intermediate between the larger Royal Terns, but larger than the Common Tern resting far in the background.

The adult Sandwich Tern in flight.

The immature Sandwich Tern. The black crest is distinctive, and it is a little bit larger than the more numerous Common Terns. But would we have been able to find it without the adult nearby? Would you?

The immature Sandwich Tern in your classic field guide pose.

That sighting by itself made it a great tern day, but as is usual for this location, we had great views of the more ‘regular’ species, so in the interest of equal time, I thought I’d share photos of some of the others.

Here’s an adult Royal Tern, with its shaggy crest. That huge orange-yellow bill easily distinguishes it from the Sandwich Terns. Sandwich Terns like to congregate with Royals, so anytime I see a flock of Royal Terns, my antenna goes up.

Caspian Tern. Like the Royal Tern, it has a huge bill and towers over the mid-sized terns. But its bill is on the red end of the orange-red spectrum, and has a smudgy tip to its bill. this time of year, it has a full black cap, unlike the Royals.

This is a Forster’s Tern. Immature and non-breeding Forster’s Terns have a black eye patch that easily distinguishes from the otherwise similar Common Terns.

Black Skimmer feeding. OK, maybe this is cheating, but Black Skimmer is in the same family of birds as the Terns and Gulls (Laridae), although it is in a different genus (Rynchops) from any terns.

Common Tern. The black carpal bar is distinctive for this immature bird.

Banded bird bonanza

Aug 152017

In the past I have described the pleasure derived from reporting the banded Tundra Swan T207 and from reporting banded Snow Geese. Yesterday Jeanine and I took a long yet delightful walk in the North Brigantine Natural Area located just north of Atlantic City. The beach was full of birds. Here’s a view of a small part of the shoreline to give an idea of how packed it was, and this was fairly typical of what we saw along much of the shoreline. Only the southernmost part of the beach was open to vehicles, so once we got past the vehicle barrier, the beach was all ours. Well, ours and the birds. It was a wonderful feeling.

Here’s a view that was not unusual today: a shoreline full of birds. Most of them are Semipalmated Plovers, with good numbers of Sanderlings and Red Knots, and a smattering of Semipalmated Sandpipers.

We didn’t find any rare or unusual species today, but the sheer number of birds overcame the lack of rarities. Highlights were 170 Royal Terns, 450 Red Knots, 9 Piping Plovers, and a conservative estimate of 3,000 Semipalmated Plovers. Near the end of the day, as we were scanning the flock, we started noticing a few banded birds. Then more. And then more. Eventually we tallied eight banded Red Knots and four banded Piping Plovers. The birds have different bands, depending on where they were banded. Five Red Knots had green flags with white codes, and three had orange flags with black letters. The Piping Plovers had either an alphanumeric flag or a series of color-coded bands. Examples of these banding strategies are shown below.

Here’s a nice Piping Plover with an alphanumeric band (85).

Here’s a Piping Plover that has only color bands, without any alphanumeric flags. The bands are not always easy to see. This bird has a yellow band above a silver band on its upper right leg and a blue band can be seen on its upper left leg.

We saw five Red Knots with green flags and white alphanumeric codes. Here’s Red Knot NKN.

Three Red Knots had orange flags with black lettering. This bird (E6) has supplementary color-coded bands on its lower left leg and a federal metal band on its upper right leg.

As soon as I returned home I assembled the information and reported it to the US banded bird website, which allowed me to access the banding location and where the birds subsequently were re-sighted. So what did we learn from reporting this information?

Let’s start with the Red Knots. The flags indicate the country where the birds were banded. Green flags with white lettering indicate that they were banded in the US. Birds with orange flags with black lettering were banded at sites in Argentina!! Unfortunately, the researcher who banded the Argentinian birds doesn’t share her information, so we don’t know precisely where and when in Argentina those birds were banded, but the likely banding site is at least 5,600 miles away from where we spotted it. Wow! But it does serve as a great reminder of the distances that these birds migrate. Four of the US-banded birds were banded in the Delaware Bay region, perhaps not surprising based on the importance of that stopover site for their migration strategy, while the final Knot was banded in Massachusetts.

Here’s an example of the report showing the history of sightings of Red Knot E6. This bird was banded in Argentina, and over the past 10 years has been sighted in NJ, Georgia, and Brazil. It’s quite the traveler.

The Piping Plovers all have a rich New Jersey history too. Two plovers bred in the Holgate division of the Forsythe NWR (which is across the channel from where we spotted them), and two others were just fledged from that region. One of our breeding birds was initially banded in Andros Island in The Bahamas, which is an important wintering region for these plovers.

An intrepid birder / photographer trying to capture photos of the banded birds. I love barefoot birding!

We’ll be heading back to North Brig very soon to enjoy the fall shorebird migration up close and personal, and you can bet that we’ll be looking for more banded birds there too. Keep an eye out for any banded birds when you are out on the beaches or mudflats this fall and get good documentation of their banding pattern. Photos are best, but note the alphanumeric codes (if present), which leg the bands are on, what color the lettering is, and whether the bands are on the upper or lower legs.