The mile long dike shown in the photo above is the best birding spot in my local area and a place I am more likely to visit in September than in any other month. The trees along the dike are a magnet for migrating songbirds and the extensive mudflats, bays, and marshes on the far side of the dike, shown in the following photos, attract large flocks of migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. This morning I was here looking for migrating shorebirds and songbirds. There wasn't a lot to see today. A Whimbrel was present, a rare bird in this area, but it was driven off into the distance by a Merlin around mid-morning. There were few other shorebirds around and songbirds were almost non-existant. So today the dike did not live up to its reputation.
 
The dike may be the best birding spot in my local area, but it is actually the site I visit least often. The reason for that is because the dike offers few opportunities for photographing the birds or viewing them without straining through the eyepiece of a spotting scope. The other sites I visit allow for closer viewing and photography opportunities, but these other sites also don't attract quite the same numbers of birds as the dike.