I met Shane Blodgett at Plum Beach in Brooklyn this morning and we proceeded to bird from there through several locations in southern Brooklyn, with the following highlights:
Plum Beach: American Tree Sparrow- Roving flock of 20+ individuals in the dunes "Ipswich" Savannah Sparrow- 2 Swamp Sparrow- 1 in the dunes Black-bellied Plover- 1 Brooklyn Golf Driving Range (Flatbush Avenue): Lapland Longspur- 1 (adult male displaying a sizeable amount of breeding plumage) Horned Lark: 58 Floyd Bennett Field (once in the morning and then again in the late afternoon): Gray Catbird- 1 Hermit Thrush- 2 Field Sparrow- 2 Swamp Sparrow- 1 Fox Sparrow- 2 Merlin- 1 One each of Northern Harrier, and Red-tailed, Cooper's, and Sharp-shinned Hawks Ring-billed Gulls- The usual large late afternoon/evening aggregation by the Boat Ramp with birds constantly cycling in and out and between 700-900 on the ground at any one time. I decided to take the rate of birds going by and counted over 100/minute heading south to roost. This rate stayed relatively steady for the 10 minutes I was counting it. It's not a stretch to say that every afternoon several (10+ even?) thousand Ring-billed Gulls go by here every afternoon during the winter. Spring, Hendrix, and Fresh Creeks: Canvasback- 2 (Spring, Hendrix) Green-winged Teal- 85 (Hendrix) Ruddy Duck- 375 (Hendrix) Pied-billed Grebe- 2(Fresh) Great Blue Heron- 1-2 (Spring/Hendrix) Night Heron sp.- 1 juvenile (Hendrix) Wilson's Snipe- 1 (Hendrix) Killdeer- 4 (2 Spring, 2 Hendrix) American Coot- 1 (Hendrix) American Pipit- 2 (flyovers, Hendrix) Swamp Sparrow- 2 (Hendrix) Coney Island Creek Area: Redhead- 1 (continues in Creek, now associating with Mallards) Lesser Black-backed Gull- 1 adult (Found in Gravesend Bay by Rob Jett who we ran into upon our arrival) Bonaparte's Gull- 29+ (only one young bird) Coney Island Pier: Long-tailed Duck- 5,100 !!!! Looking far to the SW over Lower New York Bay we observed an intense short-distance flow of Long-tailed Ducks heading roughly east, the number of which, when I counted by 10's, came out to 4,960. There were also at least 150 sitting on the water closer to the Pier. 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/ --
