I had a large gap between classes today, so I decided to go check on the American Golden-Plovers that were found the night before on N. Nixon Road. I spent from 9:50am till 1:oopm scanning through the large collection of shorebirds present, trying to pick out each individual and get an accurate count. Meticulously searching paid off when I found two White-rumped Sandpipers mixed into the flock, a new Centre County bird for me. I was able to find 10 species of shorebirds, totaling 140 individual birds! The three American Golden-Plovers from last evening were still present, and another 8 flew in while I was there! Check out this link for the full checklist. The birds were never closer than about 160 meters, so I wasn’t able to get any good photos, but I hope you can enjoy the distant shots I was able to get.
American Golden-Plovers - 4 adults sitting next to each other
American Golden-Plovers - 2 adults
American Golden-Plovers (adult in the background) and a Semipalmated Sandpiper (adult in the foreground)
White-rumped Sandpiper - adult transitioning into non-breeding plumage
White-rumped Sandpiper - adult transitioning into non-breeding plumage
Killdeer
Merlin - a distant shot of this juvenile/adult female retreating back into the woods after failing to capture any of the shorebirds