Long Valley 25 Sep 2018 - dipping warbler day

As expected, the Manchurian Reed Warbler has gone. The only Acrocephalus today was a single Oriental Reed Warbler. Besides that, we flushed several Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler and one early Dusky Warbler.

Best bird of the day? Should be a flying adult Chestnut-winged Cuckoo. And some Red-necked Phalarope still stayed and made the day less boring.

Barn Swallow

Barn Swallow - we also saw a single Red-rumped Swallow nearby

Black-winged Stint - immature and adult, note the fringes on the upperpart of younger bird

Black-winged Stilt - adult

some ducks are returning - a very record shot of Eurasian Teal, as told by the speculum. Tung and I usually saw Garganey more in LV in early fall, so this teal is an early arrivial? more about the speculum can be seen here: https://www.birdguides.com/articles/species-profiles/focus-on-identifying-female-green-winged-and-baikal-teal/

Swintail Snipe

Oriental Magpie - as split in IOC now

(Eastern) Spotted Dove

Red-necked Phalarope - a relaxed bird

Red-necked Phalarope - two feeding birds. The long thin bill, dirty upperpart and smaller size help separating from similar and rarer Red Phalarope

Red-necked Phalarope - sometimes they'r fearless

so we could observe their feeding behavior. Phalarope is well known to feed plankton/invertebrates by using water surface tension, an energy saving technique done by its long thin bill. As see in the photo, the prey was 'pulled' along with water, no suction is required.

At least 52 species were seen in four hours as here: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S48730094