Weekend Update/1 - Birding, PI

Dateline: 15-16 July 2023

Another beautiful summer weekend in Erie County, PA. Saturday: warm (high just below 27 deg C), humid, very pleasant on the lake; turned cloudy in the afternoon followed by thunderstorms (localized heavy rain) in the evening. Sunday: overhead patchy fog in the morning, just slightly cooler (high around 26 deg C), humid, windy, some haze/cloud. Lots of beach-goers at Presque Isle State Park on Saturday, slightly fewer on Sunday.

Major excitement out at Gull Point on Sunday: highly unusual sighting of three American Avocet! Many thanks to the nice birder with the spotting scope who mentioned it in passing – the Avocet were out on the “pointy part” of Gull Point (by the gulls and cormorants) = very difficult to see from the observation platform with a 500+mm lens.

The following shots qualify as ‘bad bird photography’ due to long distance + heat shimmer. This @ 560mm cropped to 16×9 + slight enlargement (birds at center of photo):

More tightly cropped:

Very tightly cropped, showing foraging behavior:

ID tip: tall/spindly legs, black-and-white body, white wing ‘stripe,’ russet head, long/upturned bill. (For better shots of American Avocet, see En La Playa from last year in Arizona.)

With that out of the way, the real star of the weekend was ‘juvenile begging behavior.’ Referring to post-nest (and flight-capable) juveniles begging for feeding by adults. For example, following is a trio of juvenile Eastern Kingbird on the east end of Bundy Beach, waiting for an adult to return with food:

Notice the head tracking in the following three shots – keeping an eye on the adult/food:

More on this in later posts, including juvenile Red-winged Blackbird, juvenile Yellow Warbler, and some great shots of adult + juvenile Eastern Kingbird.

Few more shots from Gull Point/trail on Sunday:

Out at the point, two shots of Greater Yellowlegs:

Bonus Green Heron @ Long Pond, on a different day, early morning:

1 thought on “Weekend Update/1”