Monday, October 6, 2008

trash birds?

One of my birding mentors, Don Chalfant, used to tell me an apocryphal anecdote that went something like this.  Two people are walking through a forest.  One is a birder (depending on your perspective, either an un-abashed or a jaded lister), the other is a non-birder.  The non-birder spots 2 identical birds sitting on a branch and asks his friend what they are.  "The first bird," the birder announces with great excitement, "is a boreal owl!"  "The second one is a trash bird."  Yikes.  

Anyway, I made my way back to Tiscornia today.  I've missed some nice N winds because of work and today's winds were wrong, but it was finally a day off so I went anyway.  The greater black-backed gull was standing in basically the identical location it was standing the last time I was there, and a peregrine appeared after about 20 minutes.  There was no waterfowl movement, after about an hour and a half I'd tallied 3 local mallards and one distant common loon.  I made a brief half-hearted attempt at photographing sanderlings (which is when the above peregrine flew back in and landed on the beach), and I headed home after walking the dunes hoping to kick up a LeConte's (just a few songs and white crowned's).

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