ML565823221

Age and sex

Adult Female - 1

Observation details

An incredible fallout of Red Pharalopes, continuing into a second day. Hundreds of both Red and Red-necked in the surf during the entirety of my visit. It was somewhat difficult to get a good sense of the numbers, as the birds were all making their way south, but stopping to forage in the waves along the way. A few birds would double back, but these were a minority and there was no movement headed north. At first I was starting to feel bittersweet about the event I was witnessing, having found a dead male Red Phalarope in the dunes on the way in, and with several birds on the beach in various levels of distress. However, I don't think this was a total wreck and disaster for the brids, as the birds were clearly foraging in the waves, and I could see that they were at least getting some food. There must have been a reason for their staying so close to shore in the pounding surf when they could just as easily move a few hundred feet out and have substantially less wave action. For the entire 2.5 hours I was there, at least 100 birds were in view naked eye at all times, and when scanning back and forth with binoculars that became 200-300 visible at all times. The birds were moving south, with nary a gap or break in the action. My etimated range of the count is 2-5k, so 3,000 is on the lower end of that estimate. Birds of all plumages seen well. I'd estimate ~10% nonbreeding, ~25% full alternate plumage, with the rest in various stages of molt. At all times there were a few birds on the beach, usually between 10 and 20. They tended to fly in, land to preen, and eventually fly back to the water. Some of these birds that landed on the beach were very wet (leading me to think of oiling, but I didn't see any evidence of that), and one male had a broken leg, but could still fly. What a heck of a way to get lifer #799!

Technical information

Model

NIKON Z 6_2

Lens

AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

ISO

1100

Focal length

700 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/8.0

Shutter speed

1/3200 sec

Dimensions

3557 pixels x 2369 pixels

Original file size

3.37 MB