East Pond, JBWR

     After visiting Jamaica Bay on Sunday, last week, I realized how to walk the banks with the water level lowered. With my coworker, who also happens to love birdies, we took a post work trip to see the other side of the East Pond.
     Wearing shoes that are easily washable or trashable after your walk is advised. We wore rubber boots. The bank is overall dry and not muddy, but the mud you walk upon has a ton on goose droppings and flies feeding on the wetter mud/scum. It's pretty gross. My boots and the bag I carried them in got bleached immediately upon getting home.
     Aside from the misogynistic photographers who asked us to model for them because they were getting no birds in their shots, we had a really great time. Why are people such ding-a-lings?... also poor timing a placement to be a jerky guy to women, in an area where a woman recently went missing after a jog in a nearby park-- let's just say the monopod was ready for swinging if anyone decided to be smart.
     Anyway, enjoy the better part of our trek:

Snowy Egrets practicing their balance beam routine.

Love those wings and yellow feet!

I am going to miss these guys as they leave for winter. Wading birds are my favorites to get in photos, especially when you get a really great shot.

A baby black vulture? Nah, just a ridiculous molt happening on a boat-tailed grackle.

Female/Juvenile Boat Tailed Grackle.

Feathers blowing in the breeze.

Only downside to walking around the East Pond in the late afternoon, backlit everything. Least Sandpiper.

Least Sandpiper. The peeps were pretty good at not caring about observers, while oystercatchers, night herons, they spot you 100 years away and bolt. We tried to stay up against the reeds in our walking, but some birds just were not having that tactic.

Greater Yellowlegs and killdeer intermingled among the least sandpipers.

And one semi-palmated sandpiper.

Why you move so fast black skimmer?? I love these guys, and even a crappy shot of them still looks beautiful.

Herring gulls who just don't give a hoot about much, or so it seems.

Waders: Dark birds = Glossy Ibis, Small white bird = snowy egret, 2 tall white birds = great egrets.

Attempting for meh shots of Glossy Ibis.

I am pretty convinced the smaller of the three ibis is a juvenile bird. They too will very soon be peacing out for more southerly places. We also got a nice look at a swooping peregrine on our way out, probably going after our peeps we just enjoyed seeing (peeps=sandpipers and kin).