Blue-headed Pygmy-tyrant

I've been spending a lot more time in the woods than I did in September and the passerine photo-ops have increased correspondingly.

This Blue-headed Vireo was posed in a manner suggestive in silhouette of the neo-tropical pygmy-tyrants

A Yellow-throated Vireo today at Floral felt fairly late.

Most of the birds in the trees at this point though are Yellow-rumps. 

They're pounding the abundant poison ivy berries.

Sparrows are peaking on average as well.  The best one I've seen this fall is Clay-colored; we actually had 2 at Tiscornia that day.

Note the white throat and malar that separates it from Chipping.  You can also get a sense of the gray nape as well.

Swamps are a lot more common though.

As are White-crowns

Avocet eruption

It's actually been a very good year for avocets along the shoreline despite the fact that I've never gone this late in the year without seeing one (in fact these are my latest ever).  Tim called me a couple days ago a couple hours after I'd left Tiscornia that a flock of winter-plumaged Avocets had landed on Silver. 

I walked down to the water's edge.  I scanned north.  I scanned south.  How hard is it to see a flock of 26 large shorebirds patterned like zebras?  I'm not sure why I scanned out over the water, I think it was more out of habit than that I expected to see them there, but see them there I did.

 I can't recall ever using the term "raft of avocets," but there's a first for everything.

A passing boat actually pulled a U-turn to take a closer look, apparently it's captain thought they were pretty unique too.  They flushed, launching basically like teal.  I'm not sure how much lift they needed from leg action, I think most of the flock more or less just jumped up into the air.

 

They'd barely accelerated into powered aerodynamic flight before coasting back to the shoreline.

The flock was fairly entertaining to watch as they would get washed in by the low-breaking "waves."  I'd have liked a lot more time to belly up to them but had to get to work.  Here's a few crops...

and one last closer crop that's still semi-decent

Avocets are easily one of the more skittish shorebirds, there's a good chance I wouldn't have gotten a lot closer no matter how low and slow I'd gone anyway.

Sayonara September

I didn't have a ton of luck last month, from missing easy shorebirds, unsuccessful chases, and only 50% of my pelagic attempts actually getting offshore.  BUT, it's a new month with new possibilities.  Three golden plovers flew by Tiscornia in the am, though their ID didn't jump out at me at first.  I'd spent a couple hours and then was in the process of leaving to change out a shredded tire on the boat trailer and noticed Tim heading up the beach as I finished a check of the sheltered passerine spots.

We were most of the way to Klock when we started catching up to this bird.

It's a juvenile Western Sandpiper, likely the same one he had 2 days ago on a day I couldn't get out.  It's superficially similar to a Semipalmated but has a longer more tapered and drooped bill, some rufous in the scapulars (though semis can have that), as well as dark anchor markings in the lower scapulars.  The so-called anchors are the dark centers to the lower scapulars that bleed out laterally proximal to the pale edge of the feathers.  Juvenile White-rumped can definitely show this much rufous in the scapulars, but would have longer wings and at this distance a pale reddish base to the lower mandible.  Dunlin is another bird commonly confused with Western Sand, it will have an even longer more drooped bill generally, as well as being bigger bodied in comparison with the Sanderlings.  Last year we had an adult Western Sandpiper transitioning to winter plumage, this bird is marked as a juvenile by having small pale edged wing coverts and scaps.

Westerns are longer-legged than Semi's which means they lean forward more when they feed.  Tim noted that they tend to extend their necks forward as well; it was this behavior that led him to suspect Western on the peep he first saw literally a mile away on Klock from Tiscornia on Sunday.

The bird seemed to prefer looking for the brine flies (?) (midges?) that were washed up at wave's edge, though would follow a group of sanderlings as well that would sometimes forage all the way to the grass practically.  It made a pretty close pass when it flew back out to water's edge at one point, a pic I'm fairly proud of.

No time for auto-focus, you have to just slam it into focus manually.  Admittedly I probably got fairly lucky, but you have to get into Cave Swallow form somehow.

Pier passerines

I've managed to go the entire month so far and find no year birds at Tiscornia, quite possibly an unprecedented feat.  Last year during September (despite having an appendectomy) I saw 10 birds that would have been year birds this year.  Ah well.

Passerines will drop out onto the pier at times giving much closer looks than they typically do in the woods.  I've seen Grasshopper sparrow, sedge and marsh wren, several warblers and other sparrows, and who knows what all else that was un-ID'd.  This BT Green is un-cropped, just about my only photo in the sequence that doesn't chop off the tail.

Not so with the wingtips here (I still like the pic though)

Here it's foraging in the lee of the lighthouse and Tim's backpack (from which it snatched a bug)

Tim noticed a pipit a couple feet away earlier in the morning, almost certainly my best pic of one even if it is backlit.

The friendly neighborhood Merlin was attentive to the buffet line too.  It (or maybe a couple) have been hanging out for most of the week.

The wire got in the way of the take-off sequence.  It's moulted in fresh underwing coverts in an irregular line.

I saw it take a pass at a sparrow class thing that evaded it easily before the sun rose above the dune.

not the Holland jaeger

Here's another bird that pre-dated the blog, a dark dull young Parasitic that was originally called a Pomarine from 2007.

When jaegers are perched their bills can look pretty small

Parasitic per the books is the most likely to have pale outer chevrons to the folded primaries.  The undertail coverts are a lot warmer colored than the rest of the bird.  The shape of the tail projections are the key to the ID. 

Here's a sense of the underwing.  This bird has more of a hooded effect than I remembered.

Poor man's Buff-breasted

I've been hurting for shorebirds this year.  Out of the godwits, avocet, buff-breasted, the 2 reasonably possible phalaropes, red knot, stilt sand, and less common plovers I've seen about half of what I've averaged (frequently with much less effort) in the past.  I still need White-rumped and Purple Sandpiper too but their windows haven't peaked (or even started wrt Purple) yet.

This juvie Baird's was on the beach earlier this week, it's the closest I've come to seeing a Buff-breasted Sandpiper this year.  In the past I've usually either had Buff-breasted on calm sunny days in August or brisk-strong N wind days in September.  The Baird's appeared on a brisk N wind.

 

I may have had a shot at 280 this year with some rarity luck if I'd had an average number of shorebirds, I have virtually no chance at that barring some crazy luck with rarities at this point.

Here it found some micro something or another to eat.

Note the pale scalloping to the scapulars marking this bird as a juvie.  The long wings that extend past the tail eliminate all other peeps except the fairly dissimilar White-rumped.  The bird has a more cleanly cut off buffy breast than does Semi-palmated in addition to a slightly heavier and more drooped bill.

I don't see Baird's in the water very often, this day there was a large puddle on the upper stretch of the beach where it was foraging on a fairly gusty day.

I had hoped to do a pelagic today but the storm and rain put a pretty emphatic crimp on those plans.

Parasitic Portrait

I had fairly high hopes for today, not least of which was that I could actually go birding.  The first North winds in some time were considerably less than predicted and though I ended with exactly zero yearbirds, the most interactive Parasitic Jaeger we've had yet more than made up for it.  Most of the jaegers that go by are a couple or several hundred yards out.  Sometimes (like last post) one will cut by maybe a hundred yards away.  This one did considerably better, attacking the gulls at the end of the pier.  We were impressed.

It has longer tail extensions than does the average juvie Parasitic and honestly seems to have somewhat broader wingbases than does the average one, but both may be a function of having a sweet look.

The bird went into full attack mode a few times, mainly targeting the Ring-billeds though it did tail-chase a Bonaparte's well out as well.  The jaeger would seem to try to match the wingbeats of the target, perhaps gaining additional aerodynamic advantage.  The Ring-billed is craning its neck down to look at the jaeger.  I thought it was interesting they've both turned their heads the same way as they lean into their turn.

Proof that turnabout is fair play, a young Herring Gull seemed to take umbrage at the jaeger harassing its Ring-billeds.  Only it gets to harass the Ringbills.

Herring Gull (behind), Ring-billed Gull (in front)

Finally, one less display of how low the bird was,