Last Trip of the Year

Brants

Hello fellow birders!! Our last Big Year Birding trip was on the 23rd of December and we did pretty good. We headed out to Assateague Island National Seashore arriving at 7am. We stopped at the visitors center and walked around there and was going to walk over the bridge but the sidewalk on the bridge was closed. Near the bridge we saw Brants! One of our target birds!

Next we saw some Buffleheads then we headed over to the Island.

Red-throated Loon

All the new birds we saw are also lifer birds for us too. Our second lifer was a bird that everyone wishes they could get a photo of and we failed to do that. But I must saw we were so close to it we were just in awe of the bird! This bird was perched on the railing of the bridge and we were driving up to it and it didn't move but once we stopped it stayed there for a second or two and it flew away. We got a good enough look at it to say it was for sure a Peregrine Falcon! What a beauty that was.

We stopped off at a pond that had some American Black Ducks, and American Wigeons. We were hoping for an Eurasian Wigeon that had been spotted in the area with other wigeons, but no luck.

Next we spotted some other common birds that we had already seen this year. Then as we were heading out of the park and driving over the bridge I spotted a Red-throated Loon!

Once we had that we headed north for Ocean City Inlet. We saw lots of Ring-billed Gulls there and I hope you don't mind if I share a photo of them as our nephew was feeding them.

After not seeing any Purple Sandpipers on the jetty and we walked all the way out to the end and my husband actually fell on the rocks :( We headed for Delaware State Park. We stopped at the marina and then headed over near the bridge and walked over to the other side and saw the rest of our lifers! Long-tailed Ducks, Black Scoter, Surf Scoter and Purple Sandpiper. Sadly we were unable to get a clear picture of the Surf Scoter but clear enough for us to tell what it is.

Purple Sandpiper

Black Scoters

Long-tailed Ducks

I hope you have all enjoyed our birding trips and we do plan on doing another big year in 2014. We want to be able to plan it out much better. So if you have any tips or suggestions feel free to leave a comment below. Also who would like keep reading about our birding adventures? I'm thinking about keeping this blog going. :)