Three Lifers in a Mud Puddle

Yes, three life birds, all locally rare species, congregating in a puddle in a cornfield: JoAnne Russo of Vermont Green Threads alerted me to it with a message on Facebook  (Thanks, JoAnne)  It took me three days and  three different trips though to get a good set of pictures. Lucky for me the birds stayed around. The third was my lucky day because this time the  American Golden Plover, that I had missed on the first two days, showed up.

He was the star of the show, a juvenile American Golden Plover, still showing the gold speckling on his rump. He is a transient visitor migrating from the northern tundra to his wintering grounds in South America. Most migrate through the Great Plains but a a few show up in the Northeast.

Also present that day were two Black-bellied Plovers which are much more common here

The other star of the show was a Stilt Sandpiper. It too was a life bird for me; I  had just missed it at Sterling Peats during fall migration last year. It was an adult in non-breeding plumage, mostly gray on top. The species breeds in subarctic areas and migrates to the interior of South America. It prefers pools or lagunes to tidal mudflats, and therefore the bird must have felt quite at home in this mud puddle.

From a distance, with their long yellowish legs, they are easily confused with  Lesser Yellowlegs but for their long drooping bill.

The Dunlin was my third lifer. Here in this photo the Dunlin is on the left and Stilt Sandpiper on the right. They are very similar in size, but the Dunlin is much stockier with a thicker bill. 

I had seen White-rumped Sandpipers on the coast on Plum Island before but they are not often seen inland during their long-distance migration from the Canadian Arctic to Patagonia. 

Three White-rumps preening, showing their white rumps

There were several Pectoral Sandpipers in the crowd. The following two photos show the sharp pectoral demarcation that gives the sandpiper its name.

And lastly  there were several Killdeer. They are so ubiquitous that it's easy to overlook them.

We have been having beautiful summer-like weather.The mud puddle is drying up, getting smaller by the day. In the morning it's been quite foggy, but it burns off by 10 AM. On a foggy field Canada Geese are fattening up before migration. Actually they don't migrate very far, flying just a little south of here to the lush golf courses in Connecticut.

Farm stores are busy selling local produce.

Cheers!

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Long distance migrants at Sterling Peats

I had forgotten the directions on my printer at home and was standing now on the wrong side of Sterling Peats after having made my way around bulldozers and large piles of peat, along earthen walls and skirting ditches. I was standing at the edge of a large black peat pond, looking at two birders on a grassy area on the far side. While I was pondering how to get over there, drive around or swim across (:-) a small bird landed near my feet and started picking at the mud, totally unconcerned by my present, a Least Sandpiper.

Least Sandpiper

I retrieved my car and drove around the the area until I saw some cars parked along Muddy Pond Road near a dense thicket. I parked and I followed a narrow path through the thicket to the grassy area that I spotted before.

I  joined the throng of birders attracted to Sterling Peats near Worcester, Mass,  by the reports of Stilt Sandpipers and Buff-breasted Sandpipers, but had decided to pick the day after Labor Day to avoid the holiday traffic - to my great regret, it turned out: I had missed the Stilt Sandpipers.

Soon however, a very plain looking bird was slowly walking in the low yellowish grass, blending right in: a Buff-breasted Sandpiper! It took no notice of the three of us standing there.
 

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

A small group of peeps had gathered at the edge of the pond some distance away, most of them Semipalmated Sandpipers but there were also two Pectoral Sandpipers.

Pectoral Sandpipers

Semipalmated Sandpipers

These birds had chosen this area as a stopover on their long-distance travel from their breeding grounds in the subarctic tundra and the boreal northern forest to their winter quarters in the grasslands of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. From the Northeast they fly across the Atlantic Ocean through the Caribbean to South America. The tiny Least Sandpiper, for example, may log almost 2000 miles nonstop across the Atlantic, an amazing feat.

It's a great privilege for us to be able to observe them during their brief stopover here.


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