Sunset Birding at Stone Harbor Point - Tuesday, October 4th 2011

We had a great Monarch migration going on, so we started the walk by checking out a few roosts that were loaded with hundreds of butterflies.  Since last week the Seaside Goldenrod has come into full bloom and Monarchs were nectaring on it everywhere.  Out on the beach we found seven incredibly well-camouflaged Piping Plovers roosting out of the wind and lots of shorebirds by the water and on the jetty.  We then went to Nummy's Island for the sunset and found large numbers of herons taking off from the marsh and migrating out over the water and South.  Included in the flocks were four Yellow-crowned Night Herons, an American Bittern, five Tricolored Herons and lots of other species.  Our "weekly rarity" this time was a juvenile American Golden Plover that flew across the road with a couple of Black-bellied Plovers and settled into the marsh.
55 species

Brant  80
American Black Duck  14
Black Scoter  12
Double-crested Cormorant  400
American Bittern  1
Great Blue Heron  13
Great Egret  30
Snowy Egret  80
Little Blue Heron  6
Tricolored Heron  5
Black-crowned Night-Heron  50
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  4
Turkey Vulture  2
Osprey  8
Northern Harrier  1
Cooper's Hawk  1
Merlin  1
Clapper Rail  4
Black-bellied Plover  8
American Golden-Plover  1 a juv. was on Nummy Island  flew across road calling with 2 BB Plovers
Piping Plover  7
American Oystercatcher  62
Greater Yellowlegs  3
Ruddy Turnstone  8
Sanderling  200
Western Sandpiper  9
Least Sandpiper  1
Dunlin  18
Short-billed Dowitcher  4
Laughing Gull  X
Ring-billed Gull  X
Herring Gull  X
Great Black-backed Gull  X
Caspian Tern  16
Forster's Tern  2
Royal Tern  4
Mourning Dove  6
Northern Flicker  4
Red-eyed Vireo  2
Fish Crow  40
Tree Swallow  800
Carolina Wren  1
American Robin  25
Gray Catbird  2
Northern Mockingbird  2
Common Yellowthroat  2
Palm Warbler  3
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Savannah Sparrow  3
Song Sparrow  4
Swamp Sparrow  1
Northern Cardinal  2
Red-winged Blackbird  X
Boat-tailed Grackle  60
House Sparrow  4

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://ebird.org/)

Least Sandpiper (upper) and Western Sandpiper (lower) at Stone Harbor Point today [photos by Mike Fritz]