Biking the Spit this morning, I found three American Pipits at the base--appropriately enough--of Pipit Point. I could hear the birds before seeing them and then found them at the point of the small peninsula that juts toward Ashbridges Bay and where a Snowy Owl used to sit last winter. The Pipits appeared to be feeding on the grasshoppers that are blanketing the Spit at the moment. Out at Pipit Point itself there was a small flock of warblers, including Yellow and Magnolia, the latter of which seems to be the most common warbler down there just now, even more common than Redstart.
Partly because water levels are so high, shorebirds are in short supply on the Spit, but in the two artificial ponds between Pipit Point and the Lighthouse, I saw a single (of course) Solitary Sandpiper and two Least Sandpipers. On Saturday a Lesser Yellowlegs was feeding in the wetter of the two ponds.
Although the high water is not so great for shorebirds, it's wonderful for waterfowl, and there's starting to be a good variety of ducks in the various ponds and bays. A family of four Northern Shovelers was swimming across Bay D today, and in among a flock of Mallards another four Green-winged Teal were feeding and flashing their luminescent speculums. Despite their status as dabbling ducks, these Teal were diving completely under water as they fed, much like a Scoter or Long-tailed Duck. There's a lot of Gadwall around, some of them starting to color up, a good number of Hooded Merganser, a few Scaup, and I saw one Common Goldeneye.
With the warblers, there are mixed flocks moving through, but many of them are in the wooded areas that can only be accessed by footpaths, most of which are now netted with spider webs and quite thick with mosquitoes from above and ants from below. But if you can abide the bugs, you'll find some good birds. All the swallows seem to have disappeared, along with the Common Terns, but the Caspian Terns are hanging in and yowling away, and on Saturday I saw two Great Egrets, one off by the Red Bridge and another in the Triangle Pond.
