The Nemesis Bird » conejohela flats

Conejohela Flats Avocets

Drew — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:13:53 +0000

After an early morning of looking for warblers, I got an email about two American Avocets that were hanging out on Avocet Point at Conejohela Flats. After several years of checking out the flats regularly, I finally get to see an avocet at Avocet Point, fitting I guess. I didn’t have time to kayak out so I had to be content with viewing it from the boat launch which is about 2500 ft away from the spot where the birds were. Needless to say, with the long distance and heat distortion, I wasn’t able to get very good shots.

Sanderling on mud

Drew — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:07:16 +0000

A few days ago at Conejohela Flats, I was treated to my first Sanderling in Pennsylvania. Soon after we landed on the flats it was running around with a Whimbrel, similar to the Buff-breasted Sandpiper the day before.

I am used to seeing flocks of Sanderlings on the shore, chasing waves back and forth as they feed. It is quite another thing to watch one loafing around in the middle of PA on a muddy island, with no waves. The Sanderling seemed pretty content to stick around, lounging around all day in pretty much the same location.

The Sanderling was actually a bit difficult to digiscope. Most of my photos ended up nicely focused except for the head, which was always moving. It was in constant motion, foraging in the drier mud and pulling out worms. Its very sturdy bill enables it to probe in harder mud for prey. In a study of foraging flocks of Sanderlings in New Jersey, the Sanderlings spent 65% of their time actively searching for food and 35% probing, gleaning and pecking (Morton 1996).

Sanderlings have been known to live up to 13 years (Boates and McNeil 1984). Based on broad-scale surveys, the N.A. population of Sanderlings is roughly 300,000 individuals (Morrison et al. 2000). The number of Sanderlings along the Atlantic flyway is estimated to have decreased by 80% in the last 30 years. The biggest threats to Sanderlings are human disturbance, habitat loss and the associated loss of food.

Sources:

Boates, J. S. and R. McNeil. 1984. Longevity record for the Sanderling. J. Field Ornithol. 55: 485.

Morrison, R. I. B., J. R. E. Gill, B. A. Harrington, S. Skagen, G. W. Page, C. L. Gratto-Trevor and S. M. Haig. 2000. Population estimates of Nearctic shorebirds. Waterbirds 23: 337–352.

Morton, J. M. 1996. Effects of human disturbance on the behavior and energetics of nonbreeding Sanderlings. Ph.D. diss., Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ., Blacksburg.

The Nature Conservancy. Sanderling. http://www.nature.org/initiatives/programs/birds/sibley/animals/art5632.html. Accessed 9/7/08.

and the flats Whimbrel

Drew — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:00:35 +0000

Not quite as cooperative as the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, the Whimbrel enjoyed skulking, always on the opposite end of Avocet Point where we were. This was my PA state bird #277. Whimbrels are common along the coast and the only place to reliably find them on migration in PA is at Presque Isle State Park. The large shorebirds are much less common than peeps and yellowlegs so they are always a treat. The only other of the larger shorebird I’d previously seen at the flats was a Marbled Godwit a couple years ago.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the flats

Drew — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:53:25 +0000

Conejohela Flats once again produced some good shorebirds for me. A previously reported Whimbrel was still hanging out on Avocet Point and was the first bird we saw. And right in front of it was a juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper. The thing I really love about some juvenile shorebirds is their complete lack of wariness around people. While I was taking pictures, it kept walking closer and closer until I couldn’t focus on it, only about 10 feet away.

A rare and irregular migrant in most of Pennsylvania, Buff-breasted Sandpipers are generally seen in fall, between the 3rd week in August and the 3rd week in September. These are mostly juveniles. Adults are much less common and pass through a few weeks earlier.

Occasionally the Buff-breasted Sandpiper would stretch up and look around, presumably alerted by something. Its normal behavior though was very active foraging, running around and probing for prey. At one point it pulled up a two inch worm and chowed down on that.

For a higher quality video, go to Youtube.

Glossy Ibis band update

Drew — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:33:34 +0000

Looking through about 30 pictures of the Glossy Ibis allowed me to piece together the band number- 116-50010. I submitted this info to the Bird Banding Lab. Unfortunately the bander hasn’t submitted their banding data yet but hopefully I will hear back soon.

Banded Glossy Ibis

Drew — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:14:38 +0000

At Conejohela Flats today, a young Glossy Ibis was hanging out on Avocet Point. Ignoring the seven birders walking around the flats, it foraged non-stop in shallow water from the time I arrived at 8:30am until I left at 12:30 pm.

The most interesting thing about this bird was that it was not only banded on one leg with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife band, but the left leg also had a band. Since the left band had only three numbers, it was much easier to read. 011.

This Glossy Ibis was banded by New York Audubon, which is trying to study the behaviour of herons that roost near Staten Island. They have banded several ibises, as well as Great Egrets and Double-crested Cormorants to see where they are dispersing. Check the Meadowlands blog for more info on this.

I’ll post more details on the origin of the bird when I get them.

Two different White Ibises

Drew — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:27:30 +0000

left: @ Middle Creek by Geoff Malosh- right: @ Conejohela Flats by Drew Weber

Above is a comparison of a photo Geoff Malosh took of the Middle Creek White Ibis with a photo of the ibis I took at Conejohela Flats.

Although these pictures show different sides of the bill, Geoff has another picture that shows both sides of the bill are similar in the Middle Creek bird. The dark/light pattern on the bills is quite different, confirming that these are different birds.

Any comments?

White Ibis at the flats

Drew — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:43:33 +0000

Finally got out on the flats for the first time since late April. There had been both an immature White Ibis and a Sandhill Crane hanging out there together so I was hoping to see both these birds. Unfortunately, only the White Ibis was around while I was on the flats but it was very cooperative. It was hanging out in the cove by Avocet Point and as we were watching it, the ibis wandered back up along the woods, almost disappearing.

This is my second White Ibis in Pennsylvania, the first being the immature bird that showed up last year in Harrisburg. Apparently juvenile White Ibis were annual at one time in Washington Boro, attracted to the rookery there. During an invasion year in 1977, 17 White Ibises were counted at the Conejohela Flats on August 11th.

Anyone going to see the White Ibis should be forewarned that it is keeping to the upper part of the cove on the west side of Avocet Point which makes it hard to see from shore unless you walk down the river from the boat launch to where there is a break in the trees.

Peeps

Drew — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:40:01 +0000

I spent an afternoon on the Conejohela Flats on the Susquehanna River yesterday. The water behind the dam was amazingly low, resulting in acres of mud. This benefited the birds by giving them more foraging habitat but made it a bit more difficult to get close looks at the birds. Least Sandpipers and Dunlin outnumbered everything else. A couple dozen Semipalmated Sandpipers, two Black-bellied Plovers and one each of Greater Yellowlegs and Spotted Sandpipers wrapped up the shorebird action.

Initially the birds were far off, but we hunkered down at a good vantage point on the mud flats and allowed them to get accustomed to us. They would slowly forage towards us, getting closer and allowing me to do some digiscoping.

The birds would periodically flush, flying in large circles across the water until they felt safe enough to sit down again. Sometimes they seemed to flush when a gull flew over, other times there didn’t seem to be a good reason.

The Least Sandpipers were in a wide array of plumages, ranging from the worn drab brown to bright rufous tones.

Bonies at the flats

Drew — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I spent the morning at Conejohela Flats, canoing around because the water level was extremely high following the 3 inches of rain we had just received. Generally we spend most of our time scoping the birds out from a blind that is on one of the small islands but now the blind was basically a small island of its own.

Bonaparte’s Gulls

Before I set off though, I had the pleasure of watching several first winter Bonaparte’s Gulls (or bonies) elegantly forage for food right near the dock. I really enjoy these gulls because of their bouyant, tern-like flight. They are not these big bruiser gulls like Herring or Glaucous Gulls that look mean and fly like a cargo plane.

On the contrary, they can float just above the water, gracefully maneuvering to and fro looking for a tasty floating tidbit, and then just as gracefully dive down to nab it. Even without binoculars they were easy to pick out among the Ring-billed Gulls due to their size and different flight mannerisms.

Bonaparte’s Gulls are smaller gulls, and the first cycle birds (just molted out of their juvenile plumage) have distinctive dark stripes on their wings. I also saw several adults later on when I was in the canoe, hence the lack of digiscoped adults.

One interesting thing about Bonaparte’s Gulls is that unlike most other gulls, they usually nest in trees. I would be hard pressed to remember one time when I saw a gull in a tree.