No albies, I'll go birding instead

Not a great picture but the back bird in the
middle is a Caspian Tern

Since the wind turned east Thursday, my dreams of fishing dawn till dusk for albies on my days off were shattered.  I did not have a back up plan because the weather was going to be clear. When I woke up today I decided to get some important errands out of the way in the morning. I was productive and by 11:30 I was free.

I decided if I couldn't go to the ocean to fish, I could go to bird. I haven't been birding much lately. The shorebirds are migrating south from July through September. I enjoy seeing them so at noon I left for a day of birding.

My first stop was Charlestown Breachway. There were very fey birds there. Of the acres of mudflats, there were only a few birds. They were mostly semi-palmated plovers and black bellied plovers. However, I did have one really good find. I found a Caspian Tern. This was a life bird for me.

I gave myself two hours but since there were so few birds I was done in half that time. For once I was ahead of schedule. Next I went to Trustom Pond. There was a reported Pintail Duck there this morning. Pintails are the one fairly common duck I have yet to see in Rhode Island this year. I walked down to Osprey Point with my scope but did not find it.

From there I had a choice, it was almost 4 pm. I could have gone north and tried fishing in Narragansett. I would have been closer to home. Or I could go south to Napatree Point and see if the Marbled Godwit was still there. Marbled Godwits are a large shorebird with a slightly upturned bill. They are fairly rare around here. I have only seen one in my life. Also reported at Napatree were Red Knots. I had never seen one before.

Marbled Godwit to the left
Willet to the right

So I went south. I found a parking spot and made the long walk out. Napatree Point is a long sand spit that sticks out into the ocean in Westerly, RI. Along the way there is a small salt pond that was an outlet to the ocean. There were a lot of birds in this area. I saw fifty American Oystercatchers. Before today I'd seen maybe 10 in my life! There were also many Black Bellied Plovers and gulls. No Godwit.

I kept walking toward the point. I was walking into the sun. My plan was to walk almost to the point and then turn around. This way I'd have the sun at my back and it would be easier to identify birds. After I turned back toward the car I found the Godwit. It was hiding in some tallish grass. It came out and was surrounded by Willets as they wanted to hang out with the cool kid.

After I left the Godwit I came across many other shorebirds including Red Knots.  In the spring these guys are actually red. Like most birds there plumage fades throughout the summer. They turn grey just like every other shorebird. However they are a little bigger and more plump than most shorebirds

The chunky bird in the middle is a Red Knot.
Notice that most shorebirds are grey. It makes identification
extremely difficult for all but the experts which I am
not.

so they were fairly easy to pick out.

All in all I had a fun afternoon. I stuck out with the pintail but had other good species. I saw two lifebirds in the Caspian Tern and Red Knot. I also got other first of the year bird in the Marbled Godwit. I saw tons of other birds most notably all the Oystercatchers and Black Bellied Plovers.