Semipalms! - 31 May 2012

Things were slow at Pt. Mouillee this morning.  Skies were mostly cloudy, it was cool, and a slight breeze  shut down most of the 'singers' in the marsh.  I would not refind the King Rail, Little Gull, or Laughing Gull.  My best bird of the day was probably a Short-billed Dowitcher in Cell 3 followed by a Yellow-headed Blackbird in the Vermet Unit.

The east side of Cell 3 held a few juvenile Bonaparte's Gulls, juvenile Forster's Terns, and adult Common Terns.  I spent some time digiscoping the juvy Bonaparte's Gulls so as to have reference images in case the Little Gull returns.

On the mudflats were the everpresent Dunlin and Semipalmated Sandpipers.  I had the opportunity to capture some digiscoped images of the Semipalms close to shore.

Semipalmated Plovers were also foraging near shore, so the opportunity to digiscope them was celebrated.

An Indigo Bunting made for some difficult digiscoping atop swaying phragmites with the low light and windy conditions.

Once again I had an escort of hundreds of Blue Dasher dragonflies as I rode the dikes between units.  The winds this morning tended to keep them glued to the vegetation, but a number of them hovered near me the entire morning.

Pte. Mouillee SGA (permit required Sep 1-Dec 15), Monroe, Michigan, US
May 31, 2012 7:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Protocol: Traveling
9.0 mile(s)
Checklist Comments:     Cool, cloudy, breezy.
9 species

Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus)  2
Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus)  1
Dunlin (Calidris alpina)  40
Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla)  12
Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia)  2
Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri)  3
Common Tern (Sterna hirundo)  3
Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus)  1     Vermet Unit
Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea)  2

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S100307788

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)