Douglas Futuyma and Karen Rubinstein provided excellent accounts of the uncommon geese frequenting the one remaining field on Further Lane in East Hampton (Suffolk Co., NY). Yesterday we watched 4 first-winter *GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GEESE* (little or no barring on bellies) and a single well-marked adult. Interestingly, the two Greater White-fronts that were here on Saturday were both adults! Thus, there must be at least 6, perhaps even 7, white-fronts in the area. I wonder how many are on Long Island at the moment? Just before sundown, the 4 youngsters were on the Oceanview Farm field just east of the village of Amagansett. This is just beyond the IGA supermarket on the north side of Route 27. Although there are sometimes a few Canada Geese or gulls here, this is the first time I've ever seen anything newsworthy. Whilst I watched, the geese were spooked by the LIRR train that runs along the back of the field and they flew back to Further Lane, landing on the partly obscured field between the lane and the ocean.
I spent much of the morning looking at waterfowl elsewhere. For the most part, the fields were gooseless due to hunting pressure but there were some 3,000+ on the ocean off Sagaponack. I spent a good deal of time going through these but could not come up with anything different. Shorts Pond on Scuttlehole Lane (Bridgehampton) was disappointing with less than a hundred geese, 11 *SNOW GEESE* and one Ruddy Duck. I noted that the Snow Geese here and off Further Lane are all adults. Does this mean that Greater Snow Geese had a poor nesting season this year? Does anyone have a sense of the adult to first-year ratio at Jamaica Bay? After hearing about Doug Futuyma's many good finds out at Montauk Point, I zipped off in the that direction before the light gave out. A beautiful 1st winter *KUMLEIN'S ICELAND GULL* was at Lazy Point in Napeague and an adult male *KING EIDER* was floating with a small group of Common Eiders at Ditch Plains, where I also noted an adult *BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE* and 26 *PURPLE SANDPIPERS*. At Montauk Inlet, I stumbled on a 1st basic *NELSON'S GULL*(Herring x Glaucous hybrid), likely the bird found by Shai Mitra on Fort Pond during in the Christmas Bird Count. Doug, Mike Cooper and Vicki Bustamante all saw the 2nd winter Kumlein's Iceland Gull around the mouth of the inlet (seems to prefer the west side) and have commented on its unusually dark tail band. Critical study of other features still place this striking bird within the Kumlein's spectrum. -- Angus Wilson New York City & The Springs, NY, USA http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/ -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
