Bombay Hook

Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge is located on the shore of Delaware Bay, on the Delaware side. in August and September, a series of ponds and marshes provide a stopover point for thousands of shorebirds heading south, including the largest number of American Avocets on the east coast:



Thousands of smaller shorebirds, like these Semipalmated Sandpipers, stop by as well:


Snowy Egrets are nesting residents there:


At one point as we watching the avocets, all of them raised their heads and looked in one direction, away from us:


And here was the reason - look right above the avocets on the right. It's a Peregrine Falcon. The picture is a bit blurry, but you can still see the face pattern:


The peregrine didn't get an avocet, but it did get a sandpiper:


Another hunter, another success: Great Egret getting hi fish:


Least Sandpiper, the smallest of them all:


Other pleasures of summer:








More than just birds and butterflies was flying over Bombay Hook that day:


Salem Nuclear Plant, visible from Bombay Hook. It's actually on the NJ side of the bay, but visible from miles around.


In other news, in Bayonne Bay last summer, a juvenile gull found its lunch:


Bay house sparrows on a New York street:


And the father showed up with some food: