[SBB] still no stint, but 2 Black Terns

[[[email protected]] (Mike Rogers)]

All,

I spent from just after 7am to just after noon today 7/22/06 birding New Chicago Marsh (Dean Manley was there the whole time too!). Despite our best efforts, we failed to relocate the Little Stint once again (not even any Semipalmated Sandpipers today).

The highlight of the morning was two BLACK TERNS flying west over the northwest corner of the marsh at 8:35am. One appeared to be in full alternate plumage; the other was somewhat paler on the body and may have been molting into basic plumage. The two birds headed west over A12 without stopping, but Pat Kenny, Dean Manley, and Mike Mammoser were able to get on them before they disappeared.

Large groups of peeps were around this morning, but many were too far off in the central pond to examine carefully. The pond at State and Spreckles had 420+ peeps, the pond near the track junction had 1140 peeps, and the pond near the northwest corner of the marsh had 440 peeps. Early on we saw flocks of 600 peeps in the central pond, but scoping later from the south A16 dike, I was able to count 2250 peeps (at 11:20am) - whether these included some from the track junction flock or not I do not know. The vast majority of these birds were WESTERN SANDPIPERS, but who knows what may have been hiding among them.

Also at the track junction pond were 10+ SNOWY PLOVERS; another SNOWY PLOVER was later seen south of the mid-point of the southern A16 dike.

Five color-banded and radio-tagged BLACK-NECKED STILTS were around. These birds all had a green band above the black radio antenna on their right leg and three color bands on their left leg.  At State and Spreckles were L:yellow/orange/lime and L:yellow/orange/blue and out near the track junction were L:orange/green/orange, L:blue/blue/red, and L:blue/lime/yellow.

Other shorebird totals for today included 380 WILSON'S PHALAROPES, 22 RED-NECKED PHALAROPES, 6 LESSER YELLOWLEGS, 9 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, 27 WILLETS, and 1 MARBLED GODWIT.

A juvenile RING-BILLED GULL was with 27 adults on the east side of the State and Spreckles pond.

The only swallow of note was a single TREE SWALLOW near the EEC. A LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE along the railroad tracks north of the entrance road was the first I've seen in Alviso in a while.

On the way home, I stopped by Salt Pond A2E, north of Crittenden Marsh, and found 8 LEAST TERNS on the boardwalk (scope required) to make a 4-tern species day! A BEWICK'S WREN along Stevens Creek 100 yards south of the rusty bridge was surprisingly close to the bay.

Mike Rogers
Sunnyvale

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