Saturday September 9:
- Nancy Hamilton, Ray Riddell, and Jan Riddell were the volunteers. Emily Williams was the leader. 2 people were noted on the beach and both were engaged. One visitor was a new arrival to SJ and on the phone with a friend in London who overheard Nancy talking about the birds. Both the visitor and their friend were very excited to learn about the birds. The other visitor entered the beach in the middle of a large flock of birds and was very receptive and apologetic about briefly disturbing them
- No dogs were noted on the beach.
- 932 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 3 Least Sandpipers, 286 Semipalmated Plovers, and 1 White-rumped Sandpiper were recorded on the main beach. 625 “peeps” were also recorded on the main beach but due to light levels diminishing it was too difficult to get a confident species ID.
Sunday September 10:
- Brigitte Greene was the volunteer. Emily Williams was the leader. 24 people were noted on the beach and 4 were engaged. The remainder of visitors stuck to the ends of the beach where no birds were roosting. All interactions were very positive. One man approached us to learn more about how to join the club and mentioned that he had seen a large flock of birds on the eastern section of the beach just around the point. A family was observed reading the signs with their children.
- 5 dogs were noted, all leashed.
- It was a big bird day!! 2838 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 1 Least Sandpiper, 4 Sanderlings, 231 Semipalmated Plovers, and 10 White-rumped Sandpipers were recorded on the main beach. A handful of small flocks of ‘peeps’ totaling 18 were unable to be identified confidently due to movement and/or harsh lighting making ID challenging.
- 1 Baird’s Sandpiper was noted foraging near the shoreline. Brigitte was able to take a photo with her phone to confirm ID with Jim Wilson.
- 2 Merlins were seen hunting for peeps. Their first fly over didn’t put the birds up but got their attention, second fly over put a large flock up and over the water where two Merlins proceeded to continuously try and catch a peep – closer to the end of the count so a number of the birds diverted over the road into the marsh or back to the flats.