Forest Park, Jamaica Wildlife Refuge and Big Egg Marsh...Birding Dude

Forest Park, Jamaica Wildlife Refuge and Big Egg Marsh...

Sticking to my local birding sites; today, I started the day by birding Forest Park. My first visit was at Stracker Pond around 7:50 am, where I picked up about 10 species including a very cooperative Green Heron. I spent a little longer there than expected, as I met a group that was on an Audubon/Urban Park Rangers bird walk. I stuck around and helped out a bit in pointing out a few birds and sharing views in my scope. After about an hour, the group left heading to the Water Hole another bird spot in the park; since the Waterhole, was in the plans for the day, I headed out there myself on my own. The Waterhole was very quiet, which I kind of expected. Activity around the water hole is dependent on water and with the hole pretty dried up there was not much happening. To help the water situation, many local birders have been carrying water in various containers and filling up a garbage pail cover, as well as a dripper. That works, but it does not bring in the numbers that a good rainfall would accomplish in filling the hole with water. Nevertheless, I picked up a few more species including a Northern Parula. I then headed out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. I was not keen on walking the trail because it was getting towards noon and I usually like to have covered that area much earlier. However, once there I continued on and found several additional species. My last stop was Big Egg Marsh and I did not do a good job calculating the tide as I hit the spot when the tide was receding and that was not good in terms of being able to see birds closer to the shore. It was not a bad day, and even though I did not bird the gardens nor the East Pond at JBWR, I still ended up with a total of 56 species.

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