Flintstone Park Small Sit

By Madrone Ruggiero

Sunny skies and calm seas welcomed the dozen attendees of the Flintstone Park Small Sit on Saturday February 28. At the start of the sit a flock of Northern Pintails dabbled in the shallows at the edge of the water while a small flock of Short-billed Gulls rested on the sand. Two pairs of Mallards among the pintails gave us an opportunity to compare the females of the two species. From the field guide we could tell they can be easily differentiated by bill color, that is if they pause their dabbling long enough to bring their heads above water! An added treat was that several participants were able to hear the pintails quiet whistling calls. As the tide rose the Double Crested Cormorants came in from feeding and eventually every piling was adorned with a cormorant. We didn’t see any other cormorant species; however several birds were facing us on the pilings and happened to be an array of ages, which let us examine how the chest color changes as the cormorants mature into their adult plumage. Some young children enthusiastically viewed the ducks and cormorants through binoculars and a spotting scope for the first time and gifted our field trip leader with clamshells dropped on the pavement by the gulls. 

Toward the end of the sit the tide had come in and the duck heads were all neatly tucked as the pintails napped on shore until a flock of calling gulls wheeling overhead startled them out into the bay. At the end of the sit a single Greater Yellowlegs flew in and landed less than 25 feet away on the edge of the water and began to walk around hunting for food. The sit ended with a pair of Bald Eagles kettling slowly upward over Maylor Point and two Killdeer resting quietly on a driftwood log along the edge of the water.