From 3pm til 6pm @ GBB WMA on Saturday, 9-20-08. Sunny with some clouds, warm 70's, strong ENE winds 15-20mph. Tide was high & out going. Shooting Thorofare: HT: 12:21pm, LT: 7:02pm. Little Sheepshead Creek: HT: 12:35pm, LT: 7:24pm. Mosquitos were prevalent.

Lots of Egrets, mostly Great but a few Snowy's as well. GB Herons, 1 Tricolored & a 2 B-C Night-Heron juveniles were seen. Lots of gulls & grackles today too. Off of Shooting Thorofare on the exposed sandbars off of Rutgers MRS were large groups of Cormorants. All along GBB hundreds of Tree Swallows throughout the marshes & waterways.

The most abundant shorebirds during Saturday's shorebird survey was the Blk-bellied plovers. Groups of BBP: 78 in 1 group, 100 in another & 65 in another. All were quite a ways out in the marshes @ various stops along GBB, a scope was a must but the sun was preventing any aging of the birds.

Other groups of shorebirds seen were:
Note: Distance & sun prevented the aging of most birds today.
Lesser Yellowlegs (1 group of 37), 4 Short-billed Dowitchers & a group of 6 Least Sandpipers. Single species seen: 1 juvy Semipalmated Plover, 1 juvy Least Sandpiper, 1 Greater Yellowlegs juvy, 2 Lesser Yellowlegs juvy & 1 Amr. Oystercatcher.

For photos from Saturday click the link below...

http://susan.thespikeranch.com/page33/page55/page55.html