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Posted by Toe on 23:17:44 08/28/10
In August, 2001, Bill, Brian, and Paul B. did a big S. FL Shorebird Day, calling it "2001: A Shorebird Odyssey" after the famous science fiction movie. That movie had a sequel titled "2010: The Year We Make Contact." Since this is the year 2010, it's only fitting that we try to surpass the 25 species in one day seen in 2001. Today, Bill, Trey, and I met up with Vince Lucas and Jose Padilla at Bunche Beach to attempt another big shorebird day. Angel and Mariel joined us a little later in the morning.
When we arrived, Vince and Jose had already been there for 1/2 hour and had done a good job scanning the flats being exposed by the outgoing tide. Here we picked up Wilson's Plover, Black-bellied Plover, Piping Plover, Semipalmated Plover, American Oystercatcher, Willet, Marbled Godwit, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Western Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, an early Dunlin, and a seamingly out-of-place Pectoral Sandpiper. You don't really associate a beach flat with Pectoral. We missed the much hoped-for Long-billed Curlew, but we were doing OK.
From here we went to Ft. Myers Beach where we quickly added a Spotted Sandpiper, and a littler farther down the beach Snowy Plover. We missed Red Knot and Whimbrel, but these are by no means a guarantee. We drove back to I-75 by way of Lover's Beach and got closer looks at Oystercatchers, but didn't add anything to our day's list. Still, we were leaving with a respectable 16 species for the morning.
We drove east towards the sod farms without finding any places to stop, and found our first Killdeer in the vicinity of the town of Labelle. In South Bay we added Lesser Yellowlegs, and along 827 Semipalmated Sandpiper. Having talked to the folks on the TAS trip, we bypassed Brown's Farm Rd and stopped in the first sod fields on 880 just east of the Brown's Farm turnoff. This is the spot where Brian and I had a bunch of Upland Sandpipers two weeks ago. We quickly found around 15 in the second field looking southeast. They were pretty far away, but scopes gave us diagnostic looks. In the field immediately in front of there about a dozen Pectoral Sandpipers quickly turned into over 100.
After the TAS caravan joined us for the Uplands, we doubled back on 880 about a mile to where Angel and Mariel had seen a Solitary Sandpiper and added that to our list. We hit Sam Center Road afterwards and on our first stop, in a field with some tiny puddles, picked up a Wilson's Phalarope (my favorite shorebird!). I was afraid I'd miss this for the year. Just to the east of Sam Center Road were the only fields with any decent amount of water that we or the TAS folks could find. Here we also added Black-necked Stilt, Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper, and Long-billed Dowitcher. We scanned these fields over and over again looking for an Avocet without success. Brian and I has seen a dozen two weeks before a little farther east, but those fields had since dried up and apparently the fields we checked today had none. From here Angel and Mariel went home, and Vince and Jose went to check other areas before heading back home. With word that the fields along Gladeview Rd had not produced anything, and with a little more than 2 hours of light remaining, Bill, Trey and I decided to risk it and head south to Cutler Wetlands in hopes that the Avocets were still there. At 7:19 we pulled up and sure enough we greeted by 3 American Avocets, shorebird #27 for the day. Considering we had no rarities, and a couple of very possible birds for the west coast were missed, we had a shot at 30 for the day. But, we were still very satisfied with the results, and our effort paid off in a big way. I took some ID shots of many of the birds, but a few were just too far for my 300mm lens. And, as is always the case when shorebirding, it seemed that no matter where we stopped we were always looking into the sun. At one point, we were looking into the sun from the east side of a field so we drove to the west side, and, guess what? We were looking into the sun again! I don't know how that happened.
Our day's list:
Black-bellied Plover
Snowy Plover
Wilson's Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Piping Plover
Killdeer
American Oystercatcher
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Spotted Sandpiper
Solitary Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Lesser Yellowlegs
Upland Sandpiper
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper
Dunlin
Stilt Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Wilson's Phalarope
I'll post a link to some photos tomorrow. I'm too tired to download the photos tonight. BTW, It was great to see so many faces that I hadn't seen a a long time, even if it was only for brief moment.
An Oskar Blues Old Chub Scotch Ale at Bill's House was the celebratory libation after the trip, but this day deserves two, so a Schneider Aventis Weizen Bock just went down as I typed this.
Cheers!
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