Charlestown Breachway Birding Trip with the BwBTC folks

Maybe it's the feet of snow we have on the ground that's got me reminiscing about warmer, sunnier times in New England. One fond memory I have is the 2nd annual BwBTC New England Trip. These trips are organized by Dawn of Dawn's Bloggy Blog. Last year we did some Plum Island birding, and this past August Dawn organized a trip in beautiful Rhode Island.

On-hand we had:

Jeff and Dawn @DawnFine on twitter/Dawns Bloggy Blog

Dan @Docforestal on twitter/ Nature Observances by Forestal

Larry from the Brownstone Birding blog

Cindy Cage from Living in Brooklyn and Longing for Maine

John (Tucker) from The Birdman of Bridgewater

Susan @natureframingham on twitter /The Nature of Framingham

Cindy @gemswinc on twitter

Bird List for Charlestown Breachway (thanks to Dawn for compiling):

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Green Heron

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Cooper's Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Black-bellied Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Piping Plover

Spotted Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Ruddy Turnstone

Sanderling

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Western Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper

White-rumped Sandpiper

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Laughing Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Forster's Tern

Common Tern

Caspian Tern (this was an exciting lifer for me- they're huge!)

Here's are links to other BwBTC member wrap-ups of our morning Charlestown Breachway birding trip:

http://dawnandjeffsblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/bwbtc-charlestown-breachway.html
http://forestal-plantedtanks.blogspot.com/2010/08/bwbtc-group-outing-to-charlestown.html
http://brownstonebirder.blogspot.com/2010/08/bwbtc-find-proof-of-avian-life-on-mars.html
http://johnhmitchell.blogspot.com/2010/08/bwtpc-trip.html

To any birder thinking about going to Charlestown Breachway- I highly recommend it. The drive there from Massachusetts was absolutely picturesque- especially once you get onto the winding roads along the Rhode Island coast. The morning sun reflecting off the water was beautiful. It made the early rise worth it :)

Dawn planned it perfectly with tides, and there were only a few points where we had to get wet crossing the channels. Luckily I wore quick-drying running shorts and just carried my camera above my head. Here are some pictures of the BwBTC crew mastering art of Charlestown Breachway channel crossings.

Cindy & Dawn:

Dawn, the other Cindy, Larry, John & Jeff:

Larry, Jeff & John:

John's sister and Dawn:

Here are some of the highlights from the Charlestown Breachway.

Great Black-backed Gull enjoying some breakfast:

Egrets in the trees:

Snowy Egret:

Black-bellied Plover:

This is one of my favs. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm going to so with Semipalmated Sandpiper:

There was a lot of debate over this bird. Some people thought it was a Baird's Sandpiper (I believe one was spotted on the Breachway earlier in the day), but in the end I think we decided it was a Juvenile Sanderling:

Dawn has this one tagged as a Least Sandpiper- I'll take her word on it!

I have more Charlestown Breachway shorebird pictures to share...let's see if I can get motivated to write yet another post.

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I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...

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