Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Oh my God-wit, there is an intruder among us!

A quick, after-work visit today to the mouth of the Matías Hernández river in Costa del Este produced a nice assortment of shorebirds: Whimbrels, Willets, Yellowlegs and a big group of Marbled Godwits (part of it pictured above). A closer look revealed an elegant Black Skimmer resting peacefully among the Godwits. It stayed for a while, without paying attention to its neighbors, but then flew far away, joining a really BIG flock of Laughing Gulls and, at least, other three or four Skimmers in the beach.

Quite uncommon some years ago, the Skimmers are now regular in this place, sometimes in huge numbers, with the south american race cinerascens also present (hard to tell if this one belongs to it). It is simply fascinating to watch this agile birds skimming the surface of the water while they feed, and I'm glad that now we have the opportunity to witness that show more often.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jan,

    This is Thomas from 'Walk the Wilderness" (http://walkthewilderness.net), reaching out to request you to give a submission (link to one of your posts on your blog) for the next edition of "I and the Bird" blog carnival, that I m hosting.

    The "I and the Bird" (http://10000birds.com/iandthebird) blog carnival is all about birds. Your submission can be any post on any of your blogs but on the subject of birds. The submission need not be the latest, however it would be nice if its not too old as well.

    Pl. send me (email - suresh_anand@hotmail.com) the link to your submission. Pl. also indicate the city and country where you live in your reply.

    Looking forward to your reply.

    Have a wonderful weekend...Thomas

    ReplyDelete