Crane Beach, Essex, Massachusetts, US
Jun 2, 2021 6:15 PM – 8:35 PM
Checklist Comments:    Annual BBC/ECOC walk for piping plovers, least terns, and whips.  Ocean flat calm but basically barren of birds.  We did not walk in the dunes.  The Whip-poor-wills started singing about 8:20 right at the gate.  Many thanks to Susan Hedman for co-leading this trip, acting as recorder, and finding many of the birds.
27 species
Gadwall  1    This duck liked salt water.  Gray duck with jet-black tail.
Mourning Dove  2
Eastern Whip-poor-will  2    Males singing right at gate not long after sunset on a cloudy evening.
Piping Plover  6    Adults; no young or nests seen (yet).
Killdeer  2
Sanderling  13
Pectoral Sandpiper  1    Strong bib sharply cut off at belly; larger than semipal. sandpipers and sanderlings.
Semipalmated Sandpiper  24
Willet  1    Flew over calling at gate.  Could not verify subsp.
Ring-billed Gull  2
Herring Gull  150    All or nearly all immatures.
Great Black-backed Gull  13    Mix of ages.
Least Tern  125    Everywhere as we walked; this beach is a breeding colony, so the number is typical.  We saw a few on nests but no young yet.
Double-crested Cormorant  14
Glossy Ibis  9
Eastern Kingbird  1
Tree Swallow  10    estimate
Bank Swallow  3    6 burrows seen but no birds flying in or out of them.  The 3 we saw were up the beach a ways.
Barn Swallow  1
Gray Catbird  3
Northern Mockingbird  1
American Robin  1
Song Sparrow  3
Eastern Towhee  3
Baltimore Oriole  2
Red-winged Blackbird  8
Yellow Warbler  1
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S97449970

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