Not so Upland Sandpiper

A Strange Visitor to the Barrier Beaches ....

So earlier this week, I happened upon a Facebook message chain where a very frustrated Tim Healy was lamenting dipping an Upland Sandpiper.  Guessing that the bird might be local on Long Island I chipped in and found out that the bird was frequenting the median strip of the Ocean Parkway near Oak Beach in Suffolk County.  Needless to say, this is not exactly ideal Upland Sandpiper habitat!  The strip at this spot is no more that 50 feet wide, and the bird was feeding within feet of cars and trucks cruising by at 50-60 miles per hour.  This did not sound like a bird that might be around for long ....

Upland Sandpiper - Oak Beach (Photo: Taylor John Sturm, used with permission)

Upland Sandpipers are a declining species in New York, and in the Eastern US in general.  They are, of course, a grassland species, and most of our grasslands have been turned into housing, or handed over to intensive agriculture over the past 50 years.  The species had thus grown increasingly scarce and, although once a regular breeding bird on Long Island, I haven't seen one here in perhaps 20 years.

I really did not expect to see this bird.  One by one all the local Long Island birders reported seeing it but I really didn't think it would stick around all weekend (and thought, and yes, hoped) that it would resume it's journey North before too long.  I had work commitments all week and social commitments all weekend, so the earliest time that I could possibly get to Oak Beach was Sunday afternoon, and in my opinion there was no way that bird would stick around (and not be hit by a car) that long.  But on Sunday morning, the list serve reports told me that bird was still being seen, so I persuaded Kelvin to take a more 'scenic route' back to the City ... and ... I got to see the bird ....

iPhone record shot .... don't judge me ....

Hope this bird makes it (and doesn't end up as road-kill).  I love this species ... pocket curlews .... but unfortunately a good percentage of the world's curlews have gone extinct already (and even the Eurasian Curlew, so common in my Welsh childhood, I heard this week is now endangered).  Upland Sandpiper even has an evocative Latin name - Bartramia longicauda - named after John Bartram, a pioneering colonial era naturalist, best known as a botanist, but one of the first Europeans to see many of the species of the Eastern US.   I wish this one good luck on his/her journey North though .... hope it finds a good place for the Summer.