The Birdy Site: Stehli Beach: testing the new bird-mobile

On July Fourth, two thousand and fourteen, my family got a new car.

A new car

The car is a Toyota Venza. It is, in many ways, the ultimate bird-mobile, at least for me. It's far bigger than the last car we had, a Toyota Camry. I can easily fit my scope, tripod, binoculars and other little accessories in the back seat, without having to squish myself in. What's better, it has a sunroof, meaning that I can open the top and watch soaring hawks directly above the car. What better excuse is there for going birding than getting a new car? I went birding.

Sunroof!

My Birding Gear

The excitement started even before arriving at the location for the day's birding, Stehli Beach (we'll have more details on this beach in a moment). While driving there, my father, behind the wheel, cried "Woah!" Fearing an accident, I looked up to see a brick-colored RED FOX flash in front of the car and disappear into the bushes. This was the first time I had ever been lucky enough to encounter a fox, and I was excited over that for a long time.

Now, let me explain a few things about the beach the new birding vehicle pulled into, after passing an Osprey on a nest. This beach, situated in the town of Oyster Bay, is closed over the summer to anyone who doesn't live in aforementioned town (like me). However, due to recent (and very reasonable) panic regarding rip tides and bacteria levels in the water, the beach was closed to swimming, meaning that no beach employees were present to examine places of residence. Therefore, I could go to a beach I normally could not.

Now as far as I was concerned, closing the beach because of bacteria made perfect sense. What didn't make perfect sense was the large quantity of people going into the water, paying no heed to the huge red sign saying "Closed to Swimming". I didn't want to go swimming, I wanted to go birding. I pulled out the scope, picked up the camera, and went to the beach.

I really needed to see a Least Tern. It would be my one hundredth bird for this year.

On the sand of the roped-off nesting area and in the July air above my head, at least fifteen LEAST TERNS circled, calling loudly. They were the one hundredth species I had seen in 2014.

Also there were PIPING PLOVERS, two adults, and with them four young babies, scurrying across the sand.

And that, you'll be interested to know, was basically all that was there. How many times do you go birding and see two endangered species, and basically nothing else except the usual suspects (Ring-billed Gulls, Common Grackles, etc.)?

So, here are some of my photos of endangered birds that hung out on the sand. All were digiscoped with my Nikon D3100 and Celestron Ultima 80 scope.