Hi Everyone:

Friday evening, August 18 around 7:10 pm returning home from supper. I’m taking a slow ride down Youngs Island Road in Allamuchy carefully looking through the fields for wildlife. Just went by one of the drainage ditches and noticed several Green Herons fluttering about from the weeds and flying up and down over the water. Trying to get a photo, no luck. Every time they landed, they were hidden by the weeds along the ditch. I see two take off and fly down the road, I’m going that way anyway, and I drive on. Don’t get to far and notice three silhouettes atop a telephone pole, my Green Herons. Get a couple of photos, and drive on.

Continuing my slow pace, with the window down, hear a commotion in the flooded sod field. I stop and notice several small birds foraging in the pool of water. Looks like several species of Sandpipers. I am having an enjoyable time taking photos and some videos of these little birds scampering through the pool of water foraging for food.  What a pleasant surprise, to come up with three species of water birds out here in the fields.

Check my Audubon book, the larger bird in the puddle I think is a Solitary Sandpiper, they get about 8 1/2 inches in size and the other smaller birds, are I think, White-rumped Sandpipers. It is always an adventure returning home, just never know what you are going to see in the fields. The last photo pulling into my house shows the last remnants of sunrays at 7:31 pm.

INFORMATION ON THE BIRDS

GREEN HERON – The Green Heron is a small secretive heron that lives along shaded riverbanks or quiet streams in areas of dense vegetation.  It is often somewhat secretive but is sometimes to be seen crying “kyow” while flying up a creek. When in the open, it will often flick its short tail nervously, while raising and lowering its crest. The “green” of its back is an iridescence and often appears as a dull blue or just dark.  The only regret I have about this sighting is the time and lighting conditions.  This is a truly beautiful bird to observe in the sunlight!!  Every time it moves the sun rays present a different color, especially from the green iridescence on its back!!  Being a partially migratory species, the most northerly populations migrate before winter to the southern U.S., northern Columbia, eastern Equador and northern Venezuela.  It is a very adaptable wetland bird and will occupy almost any shallow water habitat within its geographical range.  It is often found in swampy thickets, as it prefers to forage amongst dense vegetation, but when food is available it may feed out in the open.

SOLITARY SANDPIPER – Solitary Sandpipers forage in small freshwater wetlands, often in wooded environments, where they walk slowly through shallow water, frequently bobbing the rear of the body.  When startled, they fly a short distance, call, and land, often keeping wings raised above the body momentarily after landing.  These birds nest in the artic muskeg bogs.  Migrating and wintering birds use wooded swamps, river edges, bogs, lakes, ponds, ditches, pastures, rice fields and wet meadows.  Solitary Sandpipers has two subspecies, “solitaria”, which breads and migrates east of the Rocky Mountains, and “cinnamomea”, which breeds and migrates west of the Rockies. The two subspecies winter in separate and different parts of Central and South America.

WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER – Probes into mud or moss for prey, often inserting the bill completely, then walking forward to probe again.  Males perform flight displays and elaborate ground displays on breeding grounds.  Nests near freshwater in moist tundra in the high artic.  Migrants use almost any freshwater wetland with muddy margins, as well as sod farms and flooded fields, so long as water is 2 inches deep or less.  They use some tidal wetlands as well.  Winters in marshes and coastal lagoons, less often in estuaries and outer beaches.  Breeds in Alaska and across Canada to Labrador, south to northeastern Minnesota. Winters in American tropics.

Hope you enjoyed seeing and learning about our migratory visitors. There is always something to see and learn about in our wonderful Open Space Lands.

Please go to my Flickr site for more photos and videos of these birds – https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliefineran/albums/72157657816226780

Green Heron photos – https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliefineran/albums/72157647149202027

Enjoy Your Open Space

Charlie Fineran

Director Open Space
Allamuchy Township Environmental Commission – Chairman
Allamuchy Historical Society – President