Back to Presque Isle State Park from this past Sunday afternoon, with ‘part 1’ of BirdingPI.com’s first expedition to Gull Point of the year. Facilitated by light ground snow and above-freezing temperatures.
Gull Point in January ‘goal #1:’ scout for overwintering Yellow-rumped Warblers. Gull Point in January ‘goal #2:’ Snow Buntings. More on the latter later. On the former, there might have been a ‘flash of something yellow’ in one of the large bayberry bush thickets along the inland trail (i.e., outer official trail), but no confirmed sightings. Plenty of Downy Woodpecker activity, however:
By ‘big bend,’ next up was the beach access @ outer Thompson Bay, following the unfrozen water along the beach edge in the hope of maybe seeing a duck or two. (Winter PI ‘birding hint:’ always check out open water.) Instead, a very surprising ‘special guest’ appearance by an amazing/unusual Purple Sandpiper, shown here in an iPhone photo as the ‘dark blob’ center middle by the snow:
Very fortunately, this Sandpiper was busy foraging in the shallow water, and seemed unconcerned w/ human/photographer presence. Please enjoy the followings shots w/ the better camera gear @ 600mm cropped:
Coming up soon, more Purple Sandpiper, + a nice time at outer Gull Point!
The Sandpiper is SO cute! We all love cute! Nice to see it got a meal, too!
Very cute! More cute sandpiper photos on the way!
Question: How DOES BirdingPI.com get those closeups? Amazing!
Perhaps a rhetorical question, but the answer, of course, is amazing photography skill! 🙂 But seriously, first is a reasonably long lens, min. 400mm. Second, it’s opportunities where a bird is reasonably close, and hopefully reasonably non-flighty (meaning, staying in the same location for at least more than a few seconds.) In this post, Downy Woodpecker are frequently more occupied with wood pecking (foraging) than worried if people are near = good opportunity for closer shots. The Purple Sandpiper was just an amazingly fortuitous happenstance – it came within 5-6 feet (or less) of the photographer and wasn’t in a hurry.