Last Wednesday evening I judged the nature competition at the Hockomock Digital Photographers club. I left the house early that morning and headed for the Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge in Middletown, Rhode Island.
I was hoping (but not expecting, since it is early in the season) to photograph diving ducks (including Harlequins) that winter in the waters off Sachuest Point. There were surprisingly few ducks. I saw a single female Common Eider and a single American Black Duck; that was it. The ledges off the east side of the point held a couple of dozen double-crested cormorants. And, of course, gulls, mostly herring gulls, were ever present.
On land, the most common bird, by far, were migrating yellow-rump warblers; there were dozens of them. Two different types of sparrows (also migrants?) were also common along the edges of the walking paths.
I had seen groups of small birds at the surf’s edge on Second Beach on my way out to the point. They were still there when I stopped after spending a few hours at the NWR. I spent more than an hour photographing sandpipers as they foraged at the waters edge.
These birds are a never-ending source of entertainment as they scurry about trying to avoid the waves, dogs and people while pausing intermittently to forage for a morsel of food.
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