I've created this gallery, Birds of Plum Island, as my personal journey into bird watching.

Plum Island is a wonderful place for bird watching year round. Over 300 different species of birds have been known to come to the island. It is a personal goal of mine to photograph each of these species.

I have arranged the photos in the order listed on a checklist of Plum Island birds provided by the USGS, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC) on its website at the following link: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/othrdata/chekbird/r5/parker.htm

For the most part, I am choosing only one picture to represent each species. The photo must have been taken on Plum Island, and of course, be the photo which best represents the species. Where there is a noticeable difference between male and female, as in some species, I've chosen one photo for each gender if available. Of necessity, some of the photos are not of the best quality, simply because they're the only ones I've taken so far. Better ones will replace them as soon as I can improve upon them!

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to post a comment or send me an email.

There is a posted question to this gallery regarding what birds might be seen at a certain time of year. For every season there are different birds that come to the island.

With winter come the snowy owl, short-eared owl, northern shrike and smaller birds like white-throated sparrows and tree sparrows.

In the spring it’s a time for the migration biggest push will be coming through with warblers and shore birds.

Summer is a time for great egrets, snowy egrets, piping plover and some of the warblers and sparrows that remain behind.

Fall is a time for the return of the migration with the Whimbrel, shore birds and the look out for common redpolls and pine grosbeaks.

For each season and year there comes the question, what rare bird will come to the island and will it still be there till I can get to the island to see it and hopefully take its picture.

As of August 5, 2011 there are 233 species represented on this gallery.

Nancy