Return to the Shore

We visited family in New Jersey for Memorial Day weekend. On May 28 Dave, BB (Baby Birder), and I spent the morning at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. It was a lovely morning with loads of shorebirds and seabirds. We observed 48 species and added 2 new birds to our life life: a Marbled Godwit and Bank Swallows. Here are some of the highlights:

Seabirds: Common Terns, Forster Terns, Least Terns, Gull-billed Terns, Black Skimmers, Great Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Laughing Gulls, Double-crested Cormorants

Forster’s Tern (Image by Michelle Horowitz)

Black Skimmers (Image by David Horowitz)

Shorebirds: Marbled Godwit, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, Black-bellied Plover, American Oystercatchers, Willets, Dunlin, White-rumped Sandpipers, Short-billed Dowitchers

Ruddy Turnstone breeding adult (Image by Michelle Horowitz)

Other Highlights: A Clapper Rail running across the mudflats, 24 Osprey, Marsh Wrens, lots of Red-winged Blackbirds, a horseshoe crab, and many Diamondback Terrapins

Diamondback Terrapin (Image by David Horowitz)

Diamondback Terrapins basking in the Sun (Image by David Horowitz)