Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!leah!gmr044
From: gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: NA Shorebirding hot-spots
Keywords: Jamaica Bay, Parker River NWR
Message-ID: <2388@leah.Albany.Edu>
Date: 12 Jan 90 19:45:06 GMT
Organization: The University at Albany, Computer Services Center
Lines: 53

This comes from someone whose shorebirding experience has, so far,
been limited to the Northeast US, but two places that I've seen which
have impressed me most are the Jamaica Bay Refuge in New York city
(part of Gateway National Recreation Area in Queens) and Parker River
National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island in Massachusetts (North of
Boston).  Both seem to be most active during fall migration (really
late July to early October).  

Jamaica Bay is not much for outdoor-sy scenic splendor (the NYC
skyline is all around you, the entrance to the refuge is on a
trash-strewn highway and jets are taking off from JFK constantly; we
even saw (heard!) the Concorde on one trip) but once you enter the
refuge your thinking is really overtaken by birds and so you tend to
forget the distractions.  The refuge has a large freshwater pond area
where ducks and herons and egrets congregate and large expanses of
tidal mud-flat and salt-marsh areas where shorebirds will be found.  On
a recent trip we made (late August of 1989) the big prize was a
buffed-breasted sandpiper (uh, _Tryngites subruficollis_, that is)
which hung around within 50 ft of everyone for about an hour while
probably 75 to 100 birders stood there studying it.  It was still
there when we moved on.  I don't have my notes in front of me, but,
running down a blank checklist, I'd say we saw about 17 or so species
of shorebird that day as well as loads of ducks (including Eurasian
Wigeon, _Anas penelope_) and herons.  The numbers of some of the
shorebirds species were pretty impressive.  Surprisingly, at least to
me, the leader of our trip, a person who used to work at the refuge
doing migration censuses, said that that day was the least productive
day he had ever seen there at that time of the year.

Parker River NWR has a similar mix of freshwater and salt-marsh
habitats.  I've only been there once when shorebirds were present 
(last July) and no big rarities showed up but there were lots of
shorebirds there.  There were fewer species than at Jamaica Bay, in
part, I think, because it was still early in the fall migration
period.  However we did see Hudsonian Godwits (_Limosa haemastica_)
among others.  One other interesting aspect to Parker River is the
large movement of egrets to their roosts and night-herons off their
roosts that occurs each evening in the summer.  It's quite a
spectacle.


Gregg



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     "In future you should delete the words crunchy frog and 
     replace them with the legend crunchy raw unboned real
     dead frog!!"  
                 -- Inspector Bradshaw, The Hygiene Division

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