Hudsonian Godwit? Yes!

Went out to Cupsogue this afternoon with Eileen Schwinn and Mike Higgiston (the East Quogue bird mafia) to look for the HUDSONIAN GODWIT that was reported earlier by Pat Lindsay and Shai Mitra and seen yesterday by Eileen. The bird was right were it was supposed to be: on a sand flat directly in front of the westernmost of the Moriches Inlet islands and easily visible (with a scope) from the bay shore in front of the country park dunes.

Hudsonian Godwit is one of the most spectacular of the North American shorebirds. It is about the same size as a Willet, with long knobby legs and a longish somewhat upturned two-tone bill. This bird was seen in the afternoon at low tide when the flats are exposed and it was feeding on a sand bar and in the adjacent shallow water. It showed a rufous breast; that and the rather gentle curve of the bill suggest that it is a breeding-plumage male (the females have barred breasts and distinctly longer upturned bills). It also has something of an eye stripe (supercilium if you prefer) as well as a black tail and white rump, visible only when the bird shook its butt hard enough for the tail and rump to show. Since it didn't fly, the wings were not well seen although the wing tips appeared black with a trace of white occasionally visible. It was seen to catch some kinds of small crustaceans and to extract long slinky worms out of their deep coverts in the sand -- a good use for that long bill no doubt. Apparently for good reason, the bird is faithful to this spot and, if it hangs out for a while, this would be the first place to look (check for a good low tide).

Hudsonian is by far the rarer of the two native godwits and it has not been much in evidence out here in recent decades. Ironically, in recent years, we've had visits from both Eurasian godwits -- the Bar-tailed (which actually crosses the Bering Strait to nest on the shores of Western Alaska) and the Black-tailed -- as well as the more common Marbled Godwit. But Hudsonian has been hard to find. The consensus is that this bird was badly reduced in numbers during the days when shorebird hunting was a major sport as well as source of food and, for reasons that are not well understood, it has never really recovered. When I started birding in the '70s and '80s of the last century, it turned up with some regularity but since then it has become a real rarity on the East End. So it was a pleasure to see it among the other early shorebird migrants: Short-billed Dowitchers, Least Sandpipers, Black-bellied Plovers, the usual Willets and Oystercatchers and, yes, a real live Hudsonian Godwit.

Eric Salzman