400!

 

I didn't get a photo of today's Stilt Sandpiper
but this is a photo I took of one a couple years
ago.

   Today I reached my 400th vertebrate for the year in New England. Getting my three hundred and sixty fifth bird on July 20th meant I had a pretty good shot at 400. This would have been much easier if Laurie wasn't wheelchair bound with a broken leg. 

   Still, I've gotten out on my days off from work setting her up in the morning before I leave for a half day. Since July 15, I have been going to Ninigret Pond and/or Napatree to find shorebirds. Birding has been terrible and I have missed way more species than I expected.

   On the other hand, I've seen a bunch of tropical fish while seining. On this quest I have gotten eleven lifer fish species and many others that I had only seen for the first time last year.

   My biggest nemesis has been Brown Bullhead. I've targetted them five times. Once I got blanked. Three times I was into White Perch so thick that any worm I casted was gone before it hit the bottom. Finally, the fifth time was the charm. I went to a pond that has catfish last night and had one within five minutes. Brown Bullhead species #399

  Today I had to lead a bird walk with my friend Danielle in Little Compton. I didn't really plan on getting anything new, but after the walk I was going seining with four other friends in Newport so I thought I'd have a good chance of seeing #400 today. But, it turned out the four hundredth species was a bird. At our second birding location we saw a Stilt Sandpiper. It was a far away look but the bill was unmistakable. So I can clearly count it. 

   Later on, I went seining with Dick, Marge, Louise and my seining partner Allison and didn't see much in the seine. However, the tidepools had some really cool tropicals. We saw two species of Butterflyfish, Spotfin and Four Eyed. We also saw a juvenile Snowy Grouper. We didn't get photos of any of these fish but I encourage you to Google them. They are all very pretty. 

By the numbers

Birds 288 (252 in RI)

Mammals 25

Herps 25

Fish 64