I went birding with several members of the Sussex Bird Club and we covered three areas of the refuge. By the Visitor’s Center we got a good look at a red-tailed hawk in a tree by the parking lot. There were still purple martins hanging around the two apartments and we saw a blue grosbeak perched high on a tree. Next, we walked around the Boardwalk Trail including a spur around the cemetery. Birds we identified here included mourning dove, great blue heron, laughing gull, bald eagle (in the distance), indigo bunting, blue-gray gnatcatcher, lesser yellowlegs, greater yellowlegs, European starling, and American goldfinch. We finished along the Dike Trail. Some of the birds we saw here were osprey, bald eagle, semipalmated plover, semipalmated sandpiper, Forster’s tern, black skimmer (1), ruddy turnstone, American avocets (about 35), least tern, eastern kingbird, short-billed dowitcher, snowy egret, barn swallow, royal tern, lesser yellowlegs, spotted sandpiper, black vulture, and tree swallow. We saw a red-tailed hawk (probably the same one we saw earlier) in a tree near the beginning of the trail.
MY PHOTOS: red-tailed hawk, osprey, mourning dove, least tern, laughing gull, great blue heron, eastern kingbird, bald eagle
