Today Shane Blodgett, Dave Hedeen, Shawn Billerman, and I had an excellent day in the field in Suffolk County, dominated by coverage of the Smith Point County Park territory of the Central Suffolk CBC.
The unquestionable (in my mind) highlight was an unexpected heavy movement of westbound Black-legged Kittiwakes during the first hour or so of daylight. The vast majority were adults, with only 2 juveniles noted out of 127 (!!!!) total individuals. More expected, but still very cool, was the large number of Razorbills moving west. Something else that met our expectations, due to the strong wind, was the difficulty we encountered in seeing landbirds. Highlights from Smith Point below: Black-legged Kittiwake- 127 Razorbill- 81 Red-necked Grebe- 3 American Bittern- 3 Orange-crowned Warbler- 1 Palm Warbler (Western)- 2 Seaside Sparrow- 1 "Ipswich" Savannah Sparrow- 4 (There were also 2 non-Ipswich Savannahs in the marsh) The other party that went all the way out to Moriches Inlet had a Snowy Owl (on the jetty at the inlet) and 3 Pine Siskins (perched in a pine) near the inlet. After wrapping up at Smith Point, the four of us headed up to Calverton to check out the Mountain Bluebird, which was still showing well as of 3:00 PM. Fortuitously, while we were watching the Bluebird we saw a juvenile Nelson's Gull (Herring Gull x Glaucous Gull hybrid) fly by. It appeared to land in the large field west of Hulse Landing Road just south of Davis Peach Farm. We drove over there and found it standing, completely alone, in the middle of the field at which point we were able to get nice prolonged scope views and photos. Good Birding! -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
