Learning the Ropes Along the Bayshore

Last week, the Bayshore had zero shorebirds. Zero. This week, hundreds of shorebirds were back from their arctic breeding bonanza. Connie and I spent some time on the beach watching the newly arrived birds feeding on the remaining horseshoe crab eggs and other stuff. There were mostly Semi-palmated Sandpipers and some Sanderlings too. Connie doesn't spend as much time studying birds as I do so we spent time today learning the difference between the species and differentiating between young birds and adults.

Our first lesson was to learn how to identify Sanderling. Sanderling are slightly larger than Semi-palmated Sandpipers. They also have more orange around the neck and only have 3 toes. We didn't focus on the toe thing since that requires a closer examination. At this time of year, Sanderling are molting from their bright brown/red breeding plumage to gray winter plumage. They will spend their time along our Bayshore making that change. This bird has just about begun the transformation. You can see a few gray feathers coming in on her back.

Sanderling - YN=

The fact that Sanderling are molting can make the identification either harder or easier. Harder because you can't look for the same pattern on each bird. Easier because you can assume that if the bird looks different, it is probably a Sanderling. On the other hand, the Semi-palmated Sandpipers are not molting which means that they all look the same. Whether they are well behaved like this little guy . . .

Semi-palmated Sandpiper

 . . . or bickering like these two. Their feathers are all uniformly brown and boring. 

Beach Brawl

The only way to really understand the birds that you are observing is to actually observe them. Spend time watching their behavior and noticing subtle plumage traits like molt. Only then will you truly learn about the bird. 

Speaking of learning, our observation skills also alerted us to watch the Least Terns. Least Terns are an endangered species that nests on sandy beaches by the ocean. Cape May has protected areas for them and it has been very successful over the years. At this time of year, the babies are old enough to learn how to fend for themselves. They test their skills along the Bayshore since the water is calmer. Connie and I heard this guy calling to Mom while he tried his luck.

He would fly along the shallow water . . .

Juvenile Least Tern

. . . and hover like this. He dove a few times but came up empty. 

Juvenile Least Tern hovering

He called to Mom a lot as if saying "Look Mom. Look Mom". Mom watched from the sandbar.

Least Tern - Adult

I assume that she knew he would be successful and wasn't worried since she didn't budge to help. 

Look at the plumage difference between Junior and Mom. Mom has a bright yellow bill, black cap and white forehead that make her look like she's wearing a mask. Junior has a black bill and not much of a cap at all. He'll get their next year but for now, he needs to use all of his energy learning to fend for himself before heading south for the winter. Once again, we might mistake these 2 birds for separate species if we didn't take the time to learn that they were on the beach as a family. 

Radar Love

My bird club - DVOC - sponsors an intern each year at the Academy of Natural Sciences. We use money from fundraisers to help support the cost of the intern's work. The interns are then invited to give a presentation at a meeting. This year, Jenny gave a presentation with many topics but she ended by telling us about her upcoming work with Sanderlings. You should know by now that I spend alot of time on the beach in the Villas looking for tagged shorebirds (mainly Sanderlings). For instance, here is 13Y from  July 2015

13Y

And here is again from this week! Back to the same beach.

13Y

Semipalmated Sandpipers are also banded. These birds return year after year too. I know 74J like an old friend. I first spotted this fiesty little bird in 2012 and have seen him every year since. Here he is from this week.

Old friend - 74J

Here is a new one to me. 25X.

25X

I really enjoy spotting these banded birds and recording the sightings on the bandedbirds.org website. I get to see history and maps of other sightings.

This year, there was a new twist involving Jenny and her research. She contacted me to ask if I knew anyone in the Villas that would be willing to have an antenna in their yard. You see, she is tracking Sanderlings with radio transmitters that are mounted on their backs. Our friends Diane and Terry now have an antenna in their yard. Low and behold, YJ+ showed up on the beach last week with an antenna sticking out of his back. You can see it in this photo.

YJ+ antennae bird

I contacted Jenny about it and sure enough, YJ+ is one of her study subjects. I can't wait to find out what Jenny learns from YJ+ and the others that have the radios. I know it seems cruel for the individual bird but YJ+ seemed no worse for wear and I'm sure the burden will help scientists protect their shorebird brethren.

This Spring's Cast of Characters

It's that time of year again - shorebird time on the Delaware Bay. I only got to spend one day on the beach this year due to crappy weather and other commitments. It is the end of the season so most of the endangered Red Knots have already fattened up and left the bay for their arctic nesting grounds. I was fortunate to find a few stragglers including this one. Can you find him in the midst of the mob?

Red Knot

Even though the Red Knots were mostly gone, I did managed to find, photograph and report 29 banded Sanderling and a few Ruddy Turnstones. The best interaction was with a particular female Ruddy Turnstone 9EA. She was working the beach.

Ruddy Turnstone

She was really going to town digging for Horseshoe Crab eggs.

Digging

The digging paid off. She was rewarded with yummy eggs. You can see one in her beak.

Crab egg - yum!

But then, she was interrupted by a boyfriend. She was having none of it. She chased him right away!

Leggo my eggo!

Not even a couple yet and already squabbling.

I really like sitting on the beach during shorebird migration. I get to really watch the birds rather than just see them for a brief moment. I can spend hours watching them search for food, squabble, preen and rest. Great stuff.

What You Can Learn on FaceBook

You know, I'm not a big fan of FaceBook. I use it because the birding community uses it. It took me a long time to figure out that there are "groups" that people join. (Actually, Di showed me the groups). I joined a bunch of bird groups including I Heart Shorbirds. It paid off this week. Notice the photo below - good ol' T7K. I've seen this bird on our beach alot.

Most of the banded shorebirds that show up on my beach have the green flag like T7K but occasionally I find one with a different color. That's what happened on Labor Day. I went down to the beach to look for banded birds. T7K was there. So were others including an odd one that caught my eye. This one had many colored bands and a white flag. I chased it up and down the beach to get a good photo.

What I didn't notice until I got home was the wire sticking out of the back of the bird.

I enter all of my sightings and photos into a website called bandedbirds.org . After I enter them, I can search the database to see where they were originally banded and where they've been seen since. When I searched for 23C, no results appeared. Why? This bird is obviously the subject of a research project. Having no results, I went to the best place for answers - FaceBook.

I posted the photos above with a question - Does anyone in the group know anything about this bird? The answers flowed fast and furious. One guy said that white flags mean that they were banded in Canada. Great info. The comments also agreed with my assumption that the wire is actually an antenna attached to a small transmitter like this one. You can see the wire.

Someone said that the bird was probably part of this season's James Bay Research Project but we wouldn't get any info until the researchers returned from the tundra at the end of Sept.

The Internet rocks. Just like that, researchers were posting to say that they knew the bird and shared the following info. 23C is an adult female Sanderling. And, she's also a Mom! Here is a photo of her nest taken on July 9th. Can you see the 4 pale green eggs?

The posts kept coming in all day. Another researcher reported that our Super Mom successfully raised all 4 eggs into babies! Here is one of the babies with his/her own bands. Just a little ball of fluff really.

23C made her nest in a little scrape in the tundra way up in the high arctic. The researchers also posted a map showing the Polar Bear Pass National Wildlife Refuge which is on an island in Nanuvit territories in Canada. I added the mileage between the nest and the Villas beach.

What a bird. The researchers use the transmitter to track the bird's migration path but I'm sure that sightings on Villas beach are also helpful. I'll keep my eyes peeled for the babies. Wouldn't it be ironic if one of them showed up too?

If you are at the shore, you know where to find me . . . on FaceBook of course!

My Little Friends Return

You are probably sick of reading about my little friends returning to our beach every year but I get excited when they start to arrive. No, I'm not talking about the friends that come out of the woodwork in the summer because we have a beach house. No, I'm not talking about their cute but bratty kids that whine for ice cream and the boardwalk. You know who I'm talking about.

I'm talking about my buddies - 50H scratching himself above, 13Y grabbing a quick bite below.

And 27U flying down the beach.

Here's JUA. You'll notice that this bird's flag is darker green with white lettering rather than lime green with black lettering.

I've been looking at Sanderlings on our beach for about 5 years now. I know an old friend when I see them. T7K is one of the birds that I've seen quite often.

This year, I've seen him a few times already. Here he is on a different day.

I'm not the only one that encountered T7K over the past years. Someone else ran into him in Mexico near Cancun in December of 2012! Here is a screenshot of the database that I enter the sightings into.

All of the entries from Villas Beaches that have "Click here to see a picture" are my entries. Last year, he spent some time in Avalon too.

I focus on looking for my friends in August since there isn't much else going on bird-wise and it gives me a break from the guests and whiny kids. Those friends will fade once Labor Day comes around and the kids are back in school but my bird friends will hang around until Oct or even into Nov. And more arrive every day. And they are joined by warblers and hawks and eagles too. Good times, good times.

Heatwave

We are in the midst of a heatwave here in Philly. The temperature has been above 90 degrees for over a week. I finally got out to the Villas beach today to look for banded shorebirds. High tide is best because the birds are close. There were hundreds of birds and hundreds of little black biting flies out today. The flies chased us off the beach quick. Undaunted, I returned with long pants and long sleeved shirt. The effort paid off with 2 banded birds. Good ol' L5V with his buddies:

Here is a map of the places that L5V has been seen. Originally banded at Fortescue beach in May 2013. Reported a few times from Reeds beach and twice at Villas (by me).

A newcomer to the beach - 13H. This bird was banded this past May exactly where I found him today. He was also reported at Fortescue beach in NJ on June 10th. Between June 10th and July 29th, this little bird flew to the arctic, found a mate, raised babies and flew back to Villas.

Sanderling 13H

Hoping for more between now and November.

More About Banded Birds

Shortly after hitting"Post" for the last story, I headed out to the Villas beach to see if I could find more banded shorebirds. I found a few more Sanderlings with the normal light green flags with black digits. 11M and P6Y to be exact. It is neat to find information about the birds by entering the code into bandedbirds.org website. You can upload photos (which I do) and track the places where the birds have been resighted over time. Both of those birds were recently banded in NJ or DE and didn't have very much history about being resighted.

The bird that really caught my attention yesterday was this Sanderling. Zoom in to see the bands on this bird. It has 5 separate bands on all parts of both legs. Ridiculous! I wonder how this bird gets around with all of that bling.

Banded Sanderling

You know, I'm not much of a FaceBook person. I am not sure why people need to know what I ate for lunch or "Like" a photo of me doing anything at all. That being said, I am on FaceBook because birding things are posted there and sometimes nowhere else. I also like the birding groups such as the DVOC group and the ABA group. I also found a group called "I Heart Shorebirds" (the word heart is actually a heart icon). A few of the members helped me track down info on this bejeweled bird. The bird was banded at Lake Chaplin in Saskatchewan Canada sometime between 2012 and 2014. The scientist in charge was contacted and said that they did not do individual color codes or flag codes as part of that study but would love to have my sighting posted (which I did). Of course, I had to look up Lake Chaplin Saskatchewan. Here is a map. It would take 32 hours to drive there from the Villas NJ - a distance of 2,062 miles. Imagine that this little bird can fly that distance AND he is only part of the way to his winter home!

Let's drive to Saskatchewan!

I think this really drives home the importance of our own Delaware Bay to the survival of these birds. He could have taken a direct route south or gone west, but this little guy knows that our bay has horseshoe crab eggs to eat and those eggs will fuel his journey south better than any other food source. Its like people who move to Florida coming home for Cheesesteaks and TastyKakes! If you support conservation causes like I do, this is a great place to put your money and your effort.

Celebrate Delaware Bay
Read more about the efforts of scientists along the Delaware Bay here
Conserve Wildlife NJ - 2015  report

Don't Know How That Stumped Me

Northern Mockingbird - one of the most common birds in our area is the bird that stumped me.  How did it happen?  First, I forgot that I took those photos. Second, I was fixated on looking for a photo of the Phoebe to share on the blog as my "FOY" Phoebe. So when I looked at the Mockingbird photo, I just figured that it was something different and my brain just froze up.  Third, the bill on this Mockingbird is much shorter than normal.  All of which combined to really stump me. Thanks to all who emailed and commented with the ID and held back on the snarky remarks :-)

Other birds seen this weekend on the beach in the Villas while dipping (that means not seeing) on the Little Gull include Dunlin, banded Sanderling, and Fish Crows. 

Dunlin and Sanderling - 1NH in the group

Sanderling - UEM

Fish Crows causing a ruckus on the beach

While on the beach failing to see the Little Gull, I received an email about a Ruff (which is a rare shorebird) being seen at Bombay Hook in Delaware.  Despite the distance, I decided to go after it. I arrived at the refuge at 4:15 just as the sun was going into the worst possible position to view the birds in the impoundment. I did get to see a bird that I am going to count as the Ruff for these reasons - "identified by size - tall as Lesser Yellowlegs (LEYE), hump back, shorter bill than LEYE, legs brighter in color, feeding style more deliberate than LEYEs nearby which were swinging their bills through the water. unfortunately, no photos - only seen in scope".  I hope to see another one later in the year that has breeding plumage since the male is really gorgeous and ornate.  Fingers crossed.

Banded Bird News

There are many banded shorebirds running around the world these days.  You know that I take part in the banding process in spring along the Delaware Bayshore and track sightings of banded birds throughout the year.  I found 3 banded Sanderling in the Villas on Monday morning which was pretty cool since I only saw a total of 20 birds.  It is also cool that these birds manage to eek out a living in NJ in the dead of winter.  The bands usually look like this.  This is L7N. Jeannine, the data coordinator for bandedbirds.org sent me some interesting information about this bird "Pretty interesting that FL(L7N) using both Atlantic and Bayshore beaches during winter."  I think the birds are going to the Atlantic ocean beaches when the bay is frozen, which is was last month when it was brutally cold.

Sanderling - L7N

But occassionally, we get nutty looking tags like the bird below. The flag has no number/letter combination and both legs have multiple colored bands.  Jeannine, the data coordinator for bandedbirds.org sent me some interesting information about this bird below: "the bird is a dark green flag cohort from NJ 2001. That year they put two bands on the lower right to denote the week in the spring season. So this bird was banded sometime from May 29 to June 4. Might be a fun one to post on Celebrate DelBay page due to age and time of year seen on a Bayshore beach."  That makes this bird at least 12 years old! I had no idea that they lived that long.  This guy has been to the Villas for more years than I have.

Sanderling - Flag and bands

I scan the shorebirds every time I see them on the beach hoping to get a banded or flagged bird.  I think Jeannine likes the fact that I report from the Villas since everyone else seems to go to Stone Harbor and other, sexier beaches.  I like my beach and apparently, so does L7N and the 12 year old.

Guess Who's Back?

The shorebirds are back in the Villas picking worms and other things out of the mud at low tide.  They are southbound already from their arctic nesting sites.  Imagine, they left the Villas on June 1, flew all the way to the arctic, laid eggs, raised babies and are already back in the Villas on August 1.  Quite a feat. 

I managed to photograph some banded birds along the beach over the past few weeks.  And guess who's back?  Stumpy!  He/she made the trip despite only having one foot.  Way to go Stumpy!  Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of Stumpy this week but I hope to see him/her again before the bird departs for Florida or South America.

Speaking of South America, here is HM2 - a Semipalmated Sandpiper that was banded in Suriname (which used to be Dutch Guiana).  In the first photo from May of this year, he is surrounded by larger Sanderlings.  You can also see that he has a back toe which is a good way to ID this bird as Semipalmated Sandpiper since Sanderlings do not have a back toe.   

HM2 - Semipalmated Sandpiper - May 31, 2012

The second photo is from July 30.  I think it is pretty cool that this little bird travels from Suriname to the Arctic and back each year and uses our little beach in both directions as a rest stop. I mean, these photos are literally from the same beach - at the end of Ohio Ave in the Villas. I am still waiting for the full report from my friend who runs the bandedbird.org data project to learn more about this bird's travels.

HM2 - Semipalmated Sandpiper - July 30, 2012

 Did you ever wonder where the name Semipalmated came from?  It is used for both the Sandpiper and Plover.  It indicated that the birds have partial webbing between their front 3 toes.  Here is a photo of 54J showing that characteristic:

54J - Semipalmated Sandpiper - August 4, 2012

That concludes your shorebird lesson for today.  Keep your eyes open for early migrants.  Warblers such as Waterthrushes and Yellow Warblers are starting to get sick of the north and heading south now.  Unfortunately, one less Louisiana Waterthrush will make the trip this year as I found him dead in the yard last week.  Sad.  Of course, I have him in the freezer so that I can drop him off at the Academy of Natural Sciences at the next DVOC bird club meeting.  NERD!

Volunteer Recap

I am volunteering again this year to be a Shorebird Steward along the Delaware Bayshore.  The NJ Dept of Fish and Wildlife, in conjunction with Conserve Wildlife NJ closes several beaches in order to protect endangered shorebirds such as the Red Knot while they migrate from Argentina to the Arctic.  I did this last year too and I think it is an important way for me to engage with wildlife conservation in addition to simply running around looking at birds.  If you want to learn more about this important issue, go to http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/protecting/projects/shorebird/ and http://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/ensp/redknot.htm . 

Diane joined me this year, so we were stationed at either end of the closed area in the Villas. I was stationed at the north end of the closure at New Jersey Ave while Di was stationed at Rose Ave which is at the south end.  I had a great time talking to people, getting them to take surveys, and scanning the thousands of birds to find any that had been banded. I met new friends, got 12 surveys completed and over 50 banded birds documented and photographed. Di didn't have such a good experience.  She didn't get any surveys completed and only got 4 banded birds.  I guess I had the better end of the beach!

This is what the beach looks like as the tide starts to go out. Thousands of Sanderlings and other birds running along the water's edge picking through the sand for Horseshoe Crab eggs.  The birds concentrate at any point where there is a spit of sand. I guess that is where the most crab eggs are exposed.

 

Here is a closer look at the birds and an unfortunate Horseshoe Crab which is on its back.  We walk along the beach each morning "flipping" crabs but we are not allowed inside the closed beach, so we watch in vain as these crabs lay upside down all day until the tide comes back in.  Hopefully, they will flip themselves back when the water surrounds them.  This photo also shows a variety of birds - Ruddy Turnstone on the left in front of the crab, Dunlin on the right closest to the camera, and 6 Sanderlings of various colors in the middle - one of them is banded.

Here are a few of the good photos of the banded birds from last weekend:

 Here is 3NH with other birds including a Ruddy Turnstone in the middle

 This is 3YY.  He is in process of molting from dull winter gray to vibrant summer brown.  He hung around my area alot and was photographed too many times!

 This happened a few times, where 2 banded birds ended up in the same photo. Meet AM4 and P2Y.  They are the same species - Sanderlings - but in different stages of molt.  AM4 is almost ready to get a mate while P2Y still has a ways to go.

 Here are 2 more banded birds in the same photo. They guy in the front is interesting.  He has different colors of bands and no number/letters.  I can't wait to get the feedback on him after I enter him into the database.

 The HITS just keep coming.  Actually, this is H1T, but I called him/her HIT. That is a wave crashing on the beach in the background.

 Here is KM8. I snapped this photo just as he was snapping up a crab egg.  You should be able to see a small greenish egg in his bill if you click on the photo to enlarge.

Here is Stumpy.  this guy/gal hung around my beach all weekend and looked like he was getting around just fine even though he is missing a foot.  He wasn't the smallest bird on the beach which means that he is managing to plump up on crab eggs before heading to Canada.  You go Stumpy!

Please post a comment and let me know if you like seeing these photos.  Also, let me know who is your favorite banded bird so far.