I birded the Cupsogue area and then Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge (JBWR) this morning and afternoon, respectively. Highlights follow:
I arrived at Pike's Beach at ~5:40 AM, and to my surprise found an immature male COMMON EIDER. A Seawatch at Cupsogue (joined midway through by Sean Sime, Rob Jett, Heydi Lopes, and Chuck McAlexander) from just before 6:00 AM-~7:30 AM was quite productive yielding: 1 MANX SHEARWATER 1 Cory's Shearwater ~11 Greater Shearwaters 79 Wilson's Storm-Petrels 2 Black Terns 4 Northern Gannets (all immature) Highlights from the Cupsogue Flats/Bay (w/ the above, we were joined for a bit by Dave Klauber and Bobby Rosetti): 1 HUDSONIAN GODWIT 1 WILSON'S PHALAROPE (Apparently a female fading out of alternate plumage, although still retaining a fair bit of it. Originally found by Heydi) 1 COMMON EIDER (presumably the same immature male I had seen previously at Pike's) 2 BLACK SCOTERS (adult male and female) 3+ Roseate Terns 1 Black Tern 5-6 Red Knots 2 Dunlin 1 "Western" Willet 75+ Least Sandpipers 2 Common Loons 2 Saltmarsh Sparrows 3+ Seaside Sparrows 1 Bank Swallow Highlights from JBWR: 2 Western Sandpipers (Fading adults with 7 Semipalmated Sandpipers on the West Pond. One still retained a fair amount of alternate) 1 WHIMBREL (Highish flyover, West Pond) 1 LEAST BITTERN (Quick flyover, coming no more than 8 feet over my head, NW corner of East Pond. I may have overlooked this bird but for the Barn Swallow that started freaking out as soon as the Bittern took flight) ~25 Bank Swallows (mostly at north end of East Pond, with the large aggregation of Trees and Barns) 1-2 Northern Rough-winged Swallows (north end of East Pond) 2 Stilt Sandpipers (south end of East Pond) 2 male Greater Scaups 1 Possible hybrid male Greater/Lesser Scaup Selected JBWR Shorebird #'s; While the level of the East Pond is certainly a bit (or more) high for ease of birding, the numbers of migrant shorebirds, especially Dowitchers seem to be near par (and the Dowitcher number is far higher than last year) for this date: Short-billed Dowitcher- 805 Lesser Yellowlegs- 71 Greater Yellowlegs- 32 Semipalmated Sandpiper- 22 Least Sandpiper- 91 Western Sandpiper- 2 Stilt Sandpiper- 2 Whimbrel- 1 Good Birding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- 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/ --
