Yesterday morning (Sunday 31 Oct) I photographed a female-type *BREWER'S BLACKBIRD* in Deep Hollow near Montauk (Suffolk). When first spotted, it was perched on a fence behind the cow paddock next to the farm buildings on the south side of Route 27. Although I initially suspected Brewer's, my unfamiliarity with very fresh juvenile Rusty Blackbird (some retain a dark iris), left me hesitant to make the call. Concerns were ameliorated after sending photos to Hugh McGuinness and working through the ID points with him. The bird is uniformly dull brown with an indistinct supercilium and of course, has a dark iris. The culmen appeared straight rather than slightly convex, a valuable feature that Hugh suggested. Good luck if you go and let us know if you are successful. More photos would be desirable. I guess I was too busy with this bird to notice the Cattle Egret reported by a couple of other people from the pasture.
Large numbers of Laughing Gulls (6,000++) continue off Montauk Point. Mixed among them were 2 *PARASITIC JAEGERS*, 9 *COMMON TERNS*, and 66 Bonaparte's Gulls. As I picked through looking for anything that wasn't a Laughing Gull, I came upon a 1st-basic *LITTLE GULL* that seemed to be following the tide of birds moving northwest into Block Island Sound. Land bird numbers around the point were modest, the best being *VESPER SPARROW* and *BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER* near the Lighthouse. At Theodore Roosevelt County Park (aka 3rd House) the resident Mockingbirds were relentlessly hounding a juvenile *NORTHERN SHRIKE* that spent more time hidden in dense thickets than perched in the open. Earlier in the morning I seawatched from the overlook at Hither Hills State Park. Laughing Gulls were moving west in large numbers and spread out as far as the eye could see. My crude tally came to 3,750 over a 60 minute period. Among these I noted 258 Northern Gannets and 6 *PARASITIC JAEGERS*, again headed west. Oddly, all of the scoter flocks were headed east. Sunday seemed like another good day for Cave Swallows, and indeed several were reported from the Connecticut coastline, but my total swallow count (all species) came to a nice round zero! -- 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/ --
