RISD Beach, India Point Park & Pierce Field Aug 31-Sept 2 2010

Here's a post I did yesterday on a local bird alert.

Just got back from the Barrington beach owned by RISD. There was a stunning flock of 39 or so Great and Snowy Egrets on the marsh, almost all of which flew of the instant we came into sight. Thier plumage was stunningly white against the dull and muddy colors of the salt marsh. Along with the egrets we had many Lesser(?) Yellowlegs in the marsh and a ton of Semipalmated Plovers and Least Sandpipers. We had a Green and a Great-Blue Heron who both took off with the egrets. Quite a few Double-Crested Cormarants flew over while we were there and roughly five Killdeers, three American Crows and a Saltmarsh Sparrow appeared just as we were leaving. We had the usual species of gulls. There were many Blue Crabs in the marsh; at least thirty. We also found what appears to be an owl feather (most likely a Screech-Owl).

At Providence's India Point Park at around 8pm yesterday we had quite a few large flocks of gulls and seven or so Black-Crowned Night-Herons come flying over (one of the herons landed on the Brown University Boat House roof). These were my first positively identified Night-Herons of the year.

On Tuesday at Pierce Field in East Providence at about 6:30pm a Coopers Hawk flew over and a Red-Tailed Hawk bedded down for the night on cell phone tower. So far its been a good month for birding!