Although the undoubted stars of the weekend were the confiding *SANDHILL CRANES* in Sagponack, there were interesting birds to be found elsewhere. The brisk SE winds brought a good inshore flight of *NORTHERN GANNETS* and scoter heading eastwards throughout the day. The gannets were almost exclusively adults or near-adults, presumably intent on returning to their breeding colonies on Bonaventure Island in Quebec and beyond. I did two, 1-hr seawatches during the day, finding a similar mix of birds in each, but with a slight drop in the flow of gannets and uptick in the numbers of scoter as the day wore on. The first and coldest count was from Amagansett (8:23-9:23 am) and the second from Ditch Plains (1:55-2:55 pm).
Red-throated Loon - 37/54 Common Loon - 2/8 Horned Grebe - 3/4 Northern Gannet - 665/482 Black Scoter - 180/1002 Surf Scoter - 195/770 White-winged Scoter - 22/10 dark-winged scoter - 160/25 Common Eider - 7/36 Long-tailed Duck - 6/2 Red-breasted Merganser - 2/22 *RAZORBILL* - 2/0 *BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE* - 1 (ad.)/0 Other birds of note were an adult *LITTLE BLUE HERON* at Little Reed Pond in Montauk, a female *KING EIDER* off Gin Beach in Montauk, 8 *PURPLE SANDPIPERS* on the jetties at Montauk Inlet, a *TURKEY VULTURE* over the south end of Accabonac Harbor in Springs and the adult *LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL* at Lazy Point in Napeague, which I thought had departed (not seen over previous 2+ weeks) until Anthony Collerton's reported it again on Saturday. -- 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/ --
