The water level in Powdermill Pond remains very low due to the work on the paper mill dam. (See Solitary Sandpipers for more information.)
Yesterday (Saturday, 12 Sept), Joan and I spent the afternoon paddling the pond from the launching spot on Route 202 to the covered bridge and back*.
Amazingly, the only company we had during the roughly three and a half hours we were on the water was a lone fisherman in a kayak. We did, however, see a large group of birders (the spotting scopes and binoculars, were the field marks we used to make this ID!) scanning the pond from a spot on South Elmwood Road.
We saw a nice assortment of shorebirds, but no really rare ones.
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* We also spent some time out on the pond last Thursday afternoon. We saw lots of migrating shore birds, as well as a juvenile bald eagle and at least two dozen great blue herons. The skies were heavily overcast and thus conditions were lousy for photography; I did not get any “keepers”. Yesterday, the skies were mostly cloudy but the clouds were thin, This made nice light for photography.
“Solitary Sandpiper” gets my #1 rating. The reflection is what did it for me. “Killdeer #1” is less realistic with the blurred background and the very sharp foreground – almost looks forced. “Killdeer #2” has similar issues – blurred foreground, sharp subject and blurred background.
Overall a very good collection of shore birds.
Comment by Joe — 16 September 2015 @ 11:01 AM