Dupont Nature Center – Part 2

We stopped along the road that connects the Dupont Nature Center to the road on higher ground since it was a place that clapper rails are seen frequently. Our guide played the call of the bird…and we heard a response! We did see peeps on the mud flats that were studded with snails; I took a few pictures as we waited for the rail to show itself. But the bird did not make an appearance.

Our group caravanned to several beaches near the Dupont Nature Center. The red roof of the Nature Center was visible from the first one. 

The tide was going out…not many birds around since it was too early for the horseshoe crabs to have laid their eggs. I photographed the debris at the high tide make…welk egg cases, pieces of horseshoe crab shells and broken or conglomerate shells.

On another beach, there were gulls (probably juvenile ring-billed gulls) finding dinner! The clouds were thickening and the lightning was not very good for photography by this time. We called it a day and headed home.

Dupont Nature Center – Part 1

Last week, my husband and I attended a day of the Spring Delmarva Birding Weekend; I’ve posted (part 1, part 2) already about the birds I photographed at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE. The second destination was The Dupont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve. The Nature Center itself was closed while we were there but we used the outside deck for the first half of our bird watching. Double-crested Cormorants were on pilons just out in the water from the nature center and on a sandy spit.

Zooming in on the sand spit that would be under water at high tide – Horseshoe Crabs are visible. Soon they will be laying their eggs – a feast for migrating short birds that need the burst of high energy food to complete their trek to the far north.

Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows were both flitting around near the Nature Center too. The Tree Swallows have white breasts and the Barn Swallows are rust colored; the Barns Swallows seems to be preening their feathers every time they sat on the pilons – hence the almost comical poses in the photographs below.

There was a female Osprey on a nesting platform.

Two American Oyster Catchers flew in and landed on the jetty.

A Royal Tern watched from near the fishing boats. The black feathers always look like a bad toupee to me!

A Black Skimmer swooped down low on the water…I didn’t quite catch the bird skimming.

This European Starling looks a scruffy but the iridescence of the wing feathers shows up with the bright sun.

Tomorrow I’ll write about a beach we visited near the Dupont Nature Center.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge – Part 2

Continuing yesterday’s blog post about our visit to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE….

There were quite a few Great Blue Herons – none were very close.

There were four way out in one of the ponds. When I zoomed in I discovered there were Northern Shovelers (ducks) and a Black-Necked Stilt.

Also further out – near the limit of my camera’s zoom – was a Great Egret and a lot of smaller birds. The ones with the black breast are Black-Bellied Plovers. In the second picture below there is one flying; the black belly with very white rump and black armpits are clearly visible.

Then something startled the birds and they flew up – curtaining the egrets behind them!

In another area, there were two mute swans. These are not natives. Many states try to control their numbers because they are aggressive and have such voracious appetites that they disrupt local ecosystems and displace native species.

I got several pictures of Yellowlegs. The ones with the longer bills are Greater Yellowlegs and the short bills are Lesser Yellowlegs.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge - Part 1

Last week, my husband and I attended a day of the Spring Delmarva Birding Weekend; our first destination was the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE. We learned so much from our time with our guide that we’ll plan another trip to the refuge soon so we can take it slow and do even more photography. I have so much to share from the 3 hours we were there this time, that I’ve divided it into 2 blog posts! At the visitor center, there were American Goldfinch enjoying thistle seeds,

Purple martins in and out of the ‘apartments’ and

A white throated sparrow that sat still long enough for me to photography. There were also robins and a brown thrasher which did not!

We did a short hike through some woods and heard/saw a lot of warblers but they move so fast I didn’t get any pictures. Even the cardinal moved to fast for me. We climbed an observation tower and there was an American Avocet visible through the foliage along with smaller birds beyond the distance my camera could capture well. At another location, there were many more Avocets.

There were also Black-Necked Stilt. I’m showing three pictures below of the same scene...zooming in. The black and white birds with the legs are the stilts.

More tomorrow….