I took a break from Estabrook Park today, and rode my bike down to Lakeshore State Park to join Donna’s Sunday morning birding group. There were plenty of Canada geese and mallards, but the first surprise was this gopher keeping an eye on me.
I counted five hooded mergansers in various plumages. I think this one is a female.
and this one may be an eclipse male.
This bird, on the other hand, is one of the many double-crested cormorants plying the waters.
Chuck noticed this female shoveler hanging out with the mallards.
And it may have also been Chuck who spotted this darling American pipit foraging on the rocks at the water’s edge. I first saw one on the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park, but this one has more of a yellowish tint and some situation going on with its head feathers.
Finally, as far as Lakeshore Park is concerned, there are still a few monarch butterflies to be found, and here’s one tanking up for its long flight to Mexico on some white aster.
On my way back home, I took Donna’s suggestion and stopped in at McKinley Beach, where I found several dozens of herring and ring-billed gulls resting on the sand. One of them, however, was not like the others, and that’s because it’s a tern instead of a gull, and a Caspian tern (Hydroprogne caspia) to be exact. I’ve seen them in Estabrook at least once, but I have not managed to get a picture until now.
I also noticed a trio of killdeer, who have made themselves scarce in Estabrook lately.
Lastly, the big surprise at McKinley Beach was this trio of little black-and-white sandpipers that I did not recognize. It was only when I got home that I was able to identify them as nonbreeding adult sanderlings (Calidris alba). I read that they are “extreme long-distance migrants [that] breed only on High Arctic tundra, but during the winter they live on most of the sandy beaches of the world.”
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 