So I'm at Bombay Hook today (herons and egrets and ibis, oh my!)
and driving along Shearness impoundment I see a very dark brown sparrow
pop up out of the grass, fly about 20 feet, and then dive down into the
grass again.
This happens several times and then it circles behind me to disappear.
Did I probably just see a seaside sparrow?

Avocets were abundant, to put it mildly, and among the even more abundant
shorebirds I recognized both yellowlegs and short-billed dowitchers, but I
can't
tell one peep from another. I assume I was probably looking at a bunch of
semipalmated
sandpipers but I swear they're worse than sparrows to ID.

I was there for R&R more than serious birding, though I was trying to
find the tricolored heron. I never saw it but I saw many great blues in
various stages of almost-adult plumage.

I did see a lovely male northern harrier, which pretty much made my day.


--Pat

Pat Valdata | 
"The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards
and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods.
More than any other thing that pertains to the body
it partakes of the nature of the divine." --Plato