In mid-October Mike Resch, with Steve and Charla Spector, found a Hudsonian Godwit on the outer sand bar at Milford Point. After several futile attempts to locate the bird there, I ran into Patrick Comins who had a current report of it roosting at a nearby Stratford marina. Sure enough, in with a hundred or more Greater Yellowlegs on a relic floating dock, was the Hudsonian Godwit, a regular migrant visitor to Connecticut but usually a one shot wonder. Prior observations by many birders noted apparent injuries to this bird's legs and photos we obtained confirmed both a flesh tear and swelling on its left leg and a badly swollen middle toe on its right leg.
The bird lingered (and remains as of December 3) very probably due to a degree of incapacitation, although it has apparently been able to feed itself adequately and continues to roost on the marina dock with now only a few Yellowlegs. On November 27 a friend and I approached the site in a boat and obtained additional photos showing the still swollen toe, but the injured leg was tucked. Notably, when I first observed the bird in October it was struggling to maintain its balance but at the last visit it seemed to roost steadily on one leg, as shorebirds do.
Unfortunately, the bird's survival remains doubtful as food sources dwindle, unless it is capable of the necessary long distance flight to reach wintering grounds in southern South America (The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology). However, weather conditions now make that highly unlikely.
October 30, 2015
and November 27, 2015
and here's a Greater Yellowlegs portrait from the same location.
The bird lingered (and remains as of December 3) very probably due to a degree of incapacitation, although it has apparently been able to feed itself adequately and continues to roost on the marina dock with now only a few Yellowlegs. On November 27 a friend and I approached the site in a boat and obtained additional photos showing the still swollen toe, but the injured leg was tucked. Notably, when I first observed the bird in October it was struggling to maintain its balance but at the last visit it seemed to roost steadily on one leg, as shorebirds do.
Unfortunately, the bird's survival remains doubtful as food sources dwindle, unless it is capable of the necessary long distance flight to reach wintering grounds in southern South America (The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology). However, weather conditions now make that highly unlikely.
October 30, 2015
and November 27, 2015
and here's a Greater Yellowlegs portrait from the same location.
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