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