Breezy Point Birds

     I did maybe one of my last NYC Plover Project plover beach roving this last weekend. Kinda bittersweet. I love all the babies, helping them, and teaching people about them, but I also am excited for fall migration and to explore other places around Brooklyn as the seasons change. It was a much better season for the plovers this year, many more fledglings than last year, but there can still be better.

    It was easier with beach closures this year, now being the second year of doing that, people are (kind of) getting used to it and accepting of it - still of course a few outliers. 

    On today's final outing for me, only a few chicks, on the verge of fledging remained on Breezy. So off I went, and aside from the plovers, what a showing of birds out there!

The first pictures I took were of this young gull, I was intrigued by the clear view of its oil or preening gland.

Almost all birds have this gland, and by rubbing their beak on it, they can then spread the oil on their feathers and give themselves ample waterproofing!

A few fledgling terns remain and continue to beg, like this least tern. As you can see, parenting in birds also gives you grey hairs on your head!
But truly, the adult birds as they transition out of parenthood and their bodily chemicals from that phase of life wane, they also change plumage for the winter, which is a bit less sharp looking.

If you like great-black backed gulls, Breezy Point is the place to be... so many!

American Oystercatchers gather in large groupings as they prepare for their journey south. This behavior is called staging, and Breezy point is a staging space for many species of shorebird, including the piping plovers.
This banded bird looks like it may have been a resident, as their bands look like the ones used on this beach, by NYC Audubon.

And somehow they are not all yelling at the same time.

Hundreds of sanderlings also gathering up, some with the rusty remains of their breeding plumage.

This sanderling was cracking me up, as it was trying to bathe, and was deep in the water, for a sanderling. And as the waves receded, the same way your feet get the sand dragged out from under you and you sink.... that is exactly what is happening right here.
But they seemed to know what they were doing.

A semipalmated plover is another bird that is just passing through. Like the sanderling they breed far North of here and are also gathering to head south for the season.

Ruddy turnstones are fun, calico looking birds. They like to mix into other flocks. This one was feeding with the plovers and sanderlings and came up lucky with a surf clam, which was not under s tone that required turning.

Wild! A look at the tongue of the ruddy turnstone has papillae on its lower side! I guess that helps to extract clammy yum yums from their shell.

I saw around 11 piping plover, all looking mostly like this. In their juvenile and non-breeding plumage. Still cute!

Sand-tern-lings.
A few common terns of mixed ages within the group of sanderlings.

A common tern at the cusp of being their own bird, but still begging to be fed.

What luck to run into a single, and very obliging, whimbrel!

This is my year bird, thank you, whimbrel.

I'd say this bird was early, but I'm pretty sure this is the same common loon I and many saw over the summer. Anyway, they were quite close to shore, so nice to gab a pic on a bright sunny day versus a gloomy cold winter day.

Topped it all off with a black skimmer.

Now. Onto migrating shorebird season, warblers, and soon, weird ducks!