Seal Island NWR (Restricted Access): Royal Tern, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Stilt Sandpiper etc.

[Keenan Yakola]

Hi all,

Today has been a great day out on Seal Island NWR. I started work around 430 and had a bunch of good birds. Around 530 I had the Red-billed Tropicbird which has been quite regularly the past few days. Then at 545 I had a Royal Tern flyby the colony and it even called for me once! I also had a juvenile Hooded Merganser flyby with a puffin, so odd. Other highlights have been a Brown Thrasher, Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbird, a female Northern Cardinal, a Bobolink, our first Yellow Warbler since the spring and some Red-breasted Nuthatches. Shorebirds have also been pouring through. Over the past two days we have seen around 10 species highlighted by a Stilt Sandpiper today. The other species included Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstone, Whimbrel, Semipalmated Plover, Short-billed Dowitcher and of course the ever present breeding Spotted Sandpipers.  We have also had a Yellow-crowned Night Heron on and off as well the past week or so. 

All the best,

Keenan Yakola