Montezuma - shore bird bonanza

Before I get to Montezuma just a quick addendum. Birding at Meadowside, I think it was the 4th of August yielded a single patch addition: yellow-billed Cuckoo. They seem to be getting quite vocal towards the end of season, so an expected patch tick.

More recently over the past weekend I had the pleasure of enjoying an evening of spectacular shorebird birding at the Knox-Marsellus marsh of Montezuma. Another pleasant surprise was how many fellow birders I ran into, all lured in by the appearance of a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, more to that in just a flash. Other highlights included a Wilson's Phalarope (one possibly two), 1 Red-necked Phalarope, tons of peeps and Yellowlegs, Short-billed Dowitcher, 2 American Golden Plovers, Snipe and what not. A lot of stuff was way out and at time hard to ID. Non-shorebird highlights was a Eastern Screech Owl vocalizing - I hadn't heard/seen one in ages and two Viriginia Rails, one feeding out in the open the other calling at dusk - very cool! When I heard about all the excitement about the Buffy I was somewhat surprised given that I found one last year, albeit much later in the season in the second cell of the marsh. Back then I reported the bird to a volunteer at the visitor center and was told that Buffies are quite regular during migration. As it turns out they are not that regular and actually quite scarce. I went back to my ebird records and it turns out I discovered the grasspiper on the 28th of September of 2011, quite late I would assume. Well I could have had hero status - I guess more importantly other people could have seen and confirmed it - bugger!