Jack Levin and Cedar Beach 9/19/25

[jle...@gmail.com]

It was the most beautiful summer day of the season.  The wind direction changed and gone was the hot, humid and stickiest days, replaced by northwest winds overnight.....Voila!  Change.... Hank and I started our day in the North Tower at Jack Levin with egg sandwiches from Sterliing Deli.  I noticed immediately that no Osprey nest produced any young. (The nest at the South Tower has been abandoned for a while and falling apart.) When I noticed a LEAST BITTERN fly out from the south east corner of the pond, low to the water, to the tree island..... my mood changed... Hank and I saw two birds flying back to the tree island to the corner.  They seemed like juveniles. No Virginia Rail, tho.

We heard the buzzy call note of EASTERN KINGBIRD for some time and finally saw one on the tree island in the center of the pond. We watch in horror as a CEDAR WAXWING strayed into the Kingbirds fiefdom. The Kingbird flew and in one blow of its bill killed the Waxwing.  

From the South Tower, there we a strange pair of birds, in a female WOOD DUCK and a female BLACK DUCK, swimming together.  

After a stop at Country View Farm for a pie, we wanted to hit low tide at Cedar Beach, We put on our swim suit on, grabbed the noodles and scopes and then walked into the marsh and set our scopes near the SPAT area and scanned.  Hank got on the WHIMBREL in short order and eventually we saw two birds.  (Hank remembered the time we saw seven birds....) We saw SEMI-PALM PLOVER of the season. Also seen were two PIPING PLOVER, one LEAST and five SEMI-PALM SANDPIPERS, eight SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS, WILLETS, natch, and two OYSTERCATCHERS. 

Time for a swim.  I like swimming at Cedar Beach...always has a good current and it's get deep quickly like the Sound where I grew up on the beach. (At my ancestral home, the beach is gone at LOW tide.  I grew up we had a sizable beach at HIGH tide.)  Hank and I floated on noodles talking and laughing and bobbing for a while. 

Hank wanted pizza at 1943.  As some of you know..... I love to spoil my friends.... Besides I want to recheck the Osprey nest amid the ballfields on Moore's Lane.  Hank and I survey Osprey babies for John Sep and his project..... When we first surveyed the nest, there was no activity.  When we went past this morning, there was a bird on it. 

When we went to 1943 we checked it.  We saw an adult bird bringing in nesting material.  Odd. 

The pizza was divine.

We did the posts to eBird, chatting about the day with a best friend ..... pretty good day..... a little sadness, a little amazements, good food, birding, floating, any day which has Least Bitterns AND Whimbrels in it, it's a damn day!  Oh! Berry Blast Pie....