out Cupsogue way

Yesterday morning's ELIAS walk was at Cupsogue by the Moriches Inlet. This is a county park at the west end of Dune Road made up of dunes, marshes, mud & sand flats, islands, ocean and bay. It's popular with beachgoers, boaters and campers but it is also the finest East End site for shorebirds and waterbirds of all sorts. Migration, which has been underway for many weeks now, has slowed down considerably but many species of interest are still around. There are basically two ways to approach the best birding spots. One goes directly from the parking lot through the salt marsh (a muddy trek). The other, adopted for this walk, is to head a short distance west on the sand road at the far end of the Cupsogue parking lot and then follow a trail down the dunes to the bay edge. When you reach the bay (actually the shore of an inlet between the salt marshes and a couple of large spoil islands), you work your way back east, wading across a small stream or two and then the channel itself to reach the flats surrounding the island where many of the birds hang out. This is best accomplished at low tide and the tide was indeed low at about 9:30 yesterday morning.

Probably the #1 sighting (or perhaps fhe ##1, 2 & 3 sightings) were of Whimbrels: two flying over the parking lot at 7:30 am arrival, a single bird in the water near the marshes and another single bird, this one calling and flying low directly overhead as we made our way back along the shore. Another excellent sighting was a probable Long-billed Dowitcher -- a large, fairly bright and well-marked singleton with a very long bill.

Also seen: a small flock of about a dozen Red Knots, small numbers of Black Skimmers and Royal Terns (both including immatures), two Black Terns over the marsh in front of the island, numbers of Common Terns and a very few Least Terns, good views of a Clapper Rail taking a bath in a pool at the edge of the marsh along with three immature Yellow-crowned Night Herons catching crabs and several Saltmarsh Sparrows hopping and darting hither and thither.

There were not huge numbers of shore birds but there was some variety; besides the Dowitcher, Whimbrels and Red Knots there were Am Oystercatchers, a few Willets (including at least one Western Willet), Semipalmated, Piping and Black-bellied Plovers, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, at least one Short-billed Dowitcher, Sanderlings, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs (with the latter seemingly outnumbering the former!).

There were several Osprey including one active nest and all four common gull species were present (Great Black-backed, Herring, Laughing and Ring-billed). An odd observation was that of a Ring-bill flying backwards (!) across the surface of the water apparently tracking bait fish. It's sometimes said that hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward but this gull apparently failed to get that information.

There were many Snowy Egrets including one doing a veritable solo dance in the water, an activity more commonly associated with Reddish Egrets. What exactly is the bird doing? Presumably stirring up bait fish in some fashion.

Several Boat-tailed Grackles but few Red-winged Blackbirds and few swallows. The big swallow movement appears to have already gone through. Everything is early this year, even the swallows.

Eric Salzman