Friday Parker River National Wildlife Refuge was calling me. Only having one day off this week, I didn't have a game plan until Thursday night. Knowing migrating birds would be gone soon, and really, I just felt like going birding, I went to Plum Island. I left home around 7 am and made the entrance gate at exactly 8:30.
To keep this relatively short, I birded until 2 pm. I wanted to leave in time to miss the Lowell traffic. In total I got 40 species. This would be a fine number, but in truth, it was nothing special. For one, I didn't get any new birds for the year. Secondly, I saw ducks I had seen with Laurie last week and few shorebirds I'd seen all summer. As for song birds, all the ones I found, I could have seen five miles from home. I see no need to drive ninety miles to see robins, blue jay,s and pigeons.
That's not to say I didn't see a few good birds. As I mentioned before I enjoy shorebirds. I found most of the common ones including sanderlings and five black bellied plovers. There were a lot of ducks in the ponds including green wing teal, pintails, and a brant (a goose).
Unfortunately, my big complaint is with myself. I missed some birds that I knew were there. If I'd have seen them, I could have pushed fifty species, but more importantly added to my year list. When I was scoping the ocean, I saw tons of white wing scoters and many surf scoters. Yet I didn't see any black scoters. I'm sure they were there.
One trail is refereed to as the Pines. Upon pulling in, a few people were walking out. I asked if they saw anything interesting. One lady said " Red Bellied (woodpeckers), Juncos, Yellow Rumped (warblers), and Golden Crowned (kinglets) were in there." Apparently birders do not like saying the third word of a three part name. I found two out of four. I saw the Juncos and Warblers but missed the woodpecker and the Kinglet. I wasn't so worried about the Red Bellied Woodpecker, although I missed it, I watched one for ten minutes the day before in Barrington, RI. The kinglet hurt. I'd been wanting to see one all year. They are not particularly rare, but somehow I keep missing them.
Lastly, I missed a rarity while there. A Clay Colored Sparrow had been found. Of course my chances of coming it upon it were slim, but it had been reported earlier in the day. I didn't check my emails or I could have joined the legions that followed the report.
Sorry I do not have any pictures. In my rush to leave my house early, I left my camera home. Just one more thing to add to my frustrating day. I probably should have gone fishing in Narragansett!
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