Shorebirder

Advanced travel planning in 2020 has been a bit of a lost cause for obvious reasons, so I have been eager to pounce on whatever reasonably safe opportunities have presented themselves for getting the %&$# out of Connecticut. This past weekend's hot, humid and dry weather inspired a long weekend on Cape Cod with friends. Shorebird migration should be in full swing, and seabird activity had been picking up at Race Point...hopes were high for a birdy weekend, and that's exactly what we got! Dave Provencher and I departed CT very early on Friday  (7/24) morning as we drove to Chatham with kayaks mounted on the car. We would attempt to kayak out to the South Beach/Monomoy complex in search of shorebirds and terns. We knew that this would pose a challenge, as the landscape out here has changed drastically since South Beach breached during a storm in 2013, making the waters extremely difficult to navigate. We paddled out of Morris Island on the low tide and were met with large ex

Last weekend was spiced up by Tropical Storm Fay, a weak cyclone by tropical standards, that made landfall in southern New Jersey after a quick run up the coast from North Carolina. Given the brevity of the storm's track over open ocean, not much entrainment was expected, but you never really know with these systems...they are ALWAYS worth birding [safely]. Here in coastal CT we were expecting an 8-12 hour window of 30mph east winds during the evening and night of the 10th. When that magic number of 30mph is reached, it seems to greatly increase the chances of something pelagic being blown into Long Island Sound. Several birders spent the early morning of the 11th (Saturday) sound-watching along the CT coast. The eastern Sound delivered with a few GREAT SHEARWATERS from land in the first 90 minutes of daylight. They were generally seen flying east, back towards the open ocean. A mid-morning ferry ride across the eastern sound yielded nothing of interest - clearly those few shearw