Monday, Oct. 29th, 2007 I ventured out to GBB WMA for a final fall survey. The weather was nice, sunny, blue skies everywhere, breeze from the NNW and temp's in the mid 60's. I was out surveying from 1:45pm til 5:15pm.

I'm not sure if numbers are down for Great Bay Blvd. this year since I was unable to do the spring survey & have only been out for the fall survey 2x's in Sept. and 1x in Oct. However on Monday I had good numbers for GBB. These numbers are small for those who survey populated areas but in my experience of surveying GBB since 2004, Monday held a good amount of birds for GBB. Totals in 3.5 hrs for 10 different areas along GBB included: 12 BBP; a group of 43 SBD; 244 Dunlin (1 group was 178, another group was 52, the rest in smaller #'s); 37 LYL and 5 SPP.

Of other note there were small groups of brant in the marsh pools & in the thorofare along the bay beach at the end of GBB. I also saw what I think to be a Henlow's Sparrow. Sparrows and other Passerines could be seen dashing in and out of the roadside thickets along the entire GBB drive.

A Flash slideshow or photo album will be up soon.

I just put up 2 slideshows of bird pix from Frsico, NC. Sorry there isn't a great variety of species but there wasn't much to see on the beach where we were staying. There are some decent shots of some Red Knots and a Lesser Black-backed gull with a Pompano fish in it's bill. Click below for the direct links or go under "Flash Slideshows" in the side bar menu.

http://susan.thespikeranch.com/page33/page36/page36.html

http://susan.thespikeranch.com/page33/page37/page37.html

I had the good fortune of spending a week in Frisco, NC thanks to my brother Bob and sis-n-law Vicki. We just got back last night. The entire week was summer like! There wasn't a whole lot of shorebirds along the section of beach where we stayed (just south of Frisco Pier) but I managed to get some decent pix. Check back for a slideshow or 2 of which I'm sure I'll have posted this week.

The slideshow of Sanderlings & Gulls can be found on the Flash Slideshow page or click on the photo below.

Yesterday afternoon went from gray to blue skies and sunshine on the beach in OC,NJ. Various gulls (Laughing, Great Black-backed, Ring-billed and Herring Gulls) were roosting and feeding. Groups of Sanderlings were feeding and flying by. I should have a Flash slideshow up on the site in the next few days, if not later today. Here's 2 of the photo's from yesterday.