My timing couldn't have been better on a quick trip out to the Wastewater Saturday morning. I met Phil Chu, saw the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, and met Lizzy Kibbey (a.k.a. Lizard, Lizzy the Fabulous and the Magical Duck Wizard) for the first time. She was birding with James Fyfe, Steve Minard, and other members of the Grand Rapids Audubon Club.
Regarding the sandpiper, it was last reported to Mich-listers by Heidi Grether of Williamston at 4:00 Saturday afternoon and has not been seen today despite the efforts of 40+ birders.
Regarding Lizzy, I asked her if she would send me a report of what she and her group had seen yesterday. I also mentioned that I was surprised on a bike ride yesterday afternoon to have found Brian Johnson at the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve removing invasive plant species and banding birds. I attached this photo to Lizzy and asked her to guess the species, sex and age.
This afternoon Lizzy emailed this report:
It was nice meeting you finally! Yes, we will have to bird sometime!
The Sharp-tailed Sandpiper continued to be present throughout the stay of our roughly four and a half hour MWW round-about trip stay. It also continued to draw in a large crowd of people, all of which stopped and asked us if we knew about the birds where abouts. Our GRAC trip was going on that morning, if you didn't know that. It was James and Becky who were leading it, and the main objective was to find shorebirds. And find shorebirds we did! That Sharp-tailed just happend to have SUCH perfect timing! Here is the great list of shorebirds that we managed to pull off today!
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper - 1
Semipalmated Plover - 10
Pectoral Sandpiper - 15
Killdeer - 12 (It's a sad day when there are more LEYE in the MWW than there are KILL!)
Lesser Yellowlegs - 28
Least Sandpiper - 20
Spotted Sandpiper - 9
Black-bellied Plover - 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 27
Wilson's Phalarope - 2 (I think me and Mr. Fyfe are the only ones in our group that caught the fact that there were two swimming together; one immature, and one nonbreeding adult. Same cell as STSA.)
Solitary Sandpiper - 4
Sanderling - 1 (One molting from breeding to nonbreeding; still had bright red on chest area.)
Short-billed Dowitcher - 1
Stilt Sandpiper - 1
Baird's Sandpiper - 1
(We also had a good flock (32) of Bobolinks, the Ring-necked Duck continued to make an appearence at the E Lagoon, A Sharp-shinned Hawk around the edge of the E Lagoon, and a Peregrine over there too, two Kestrels, three turkeys, and a few different species of ducks. I took some pictures, so once I get them uploaded, I'll send them to you to attach into your report!)
We also searched for Golden-Plovers, and Uplands, but lucked out on both of those. I guess we expected too much; we expected the STSA to be there, and that we'd find a plethora of all the stuff we wouldn't see. Just great....
After some of our group left, five of us remained, and we headed over to the MLNP. Brian was doing his work, setting up nets. Yellow Warblers were still plentiful, and so were Warbling Vireos. Becky and me had two flyover Common Nighthawks in cloudly sunshine, but everyone else was busy talking to Brian. As Becky was leaving to head home, and leaving us to wander more to find the Northern Waterthrush we'd come for, a female American Redstart almost landed on her shoulder! Apparently they are used to frequent contact with Brian, and aren't much afraid. We checked out on the water, and managed to see an Osprey flying near the power stack. We also heard a Virginia Rail, and saw two flyover Green Herons.
Honestly, that bird looks like a Yellow Warbler. I'd say a female Yellow Warbler. Saw how plentiful they were in the area of that picture, as we were over there yesterday ourselves. Bill is long, and thin, taking away the chance of it being a Goldfinch. Wings show some dark greenish to black. From the angle, I can't really tell if it has wingbars or not, and can't look for the notch in the tail. That and the leg color is pinkish, so I'll stick with female Yellow Warbler! That's a very good picture by the way!
- Lizzy
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Thanks, Lizzy! It's easy to take a good picture when someone is holding the bird six inches from the camera!
Photo Quiz Answer: Lizzy's excellent guess is what Brian was thinking too at first. However, the slight traces of red streaks in the breast convinced him that this is a first-year male Yellow Warbler. - Ric
Lizzy's photo of the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (bird on the right):
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