Given the strong storm passing by the area overnight, I planned on being on the Brooklyn coast around Gravesend Bay or Coney Island at dawn today. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, given the amount of rain I dodged by showing up late), I got there a bit later than I had planned on, but the hoped-for Alcid show was still happening:
I arrived at the end of Bay Parkway, where it dead ends at Gravesend Bay (adjacent to Caeser's Bay Bazaar) at 8:14 AM, and immediately saw a Dovekie flying while I was still inside my car with the engine running. My final tally for the 55 minutes I stayed there was 21 Dovekies, all flying south or SE out of the upper bay (away from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge), with 20 of those coming in the first 40 or so minutes, and the last one passing at 9:00 AM. Given that I got there well after sunrise, and that I didn't start using a scope for 10-15 minutes, there was potential for many more to be counted there this morning. They were observed in groups of: 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 5, 1. The weather when I got there was strong SE winds (felt like ~25 MPH) and intermittent light rain. The rain very quickly tapered off, and most of my time there was dry, but the wind also shifted to the SW or WSW by the time I left, and the sky cleared up a good bit. The winds last night were supposed to get up to 40 MPH sustained out of the ESE or SE, the perfect recipe for something like this to happen locally. Interestingly I didn't note any other Alcids or many other seabirds that appeared to be exiting the bay. There were ~250 Bonaparte's Gulls in the bay, but there has been near this number recently. Shortly afterwards, I went over to Coney Island Beach at 35th Street to see if anything was hanging around there. I briefly saw two more Dovekies (two singles, 20 or more minutes apart) flying south, possibly coming out of Gravesend Bay. There was also a pale juvenile Iceland Gull hanging out with the Ring-billed Gulls on the boardwalk and the beach around 35th Street. At Sheepshead Bay, there was a juvenile Razorbill well inside the bay near the (currently closed) pedestrian walkway over the bay. This is possibly/likely the same individual that was at the mouth of Sheepshead Bay (seen from the end of Brigham Street) 2 days ago. It was almost constantly flapping and preening, as the one two days ago was doing, which I found peculiar. To give an idea of how unprecedented this is for Brooklyn in terms of records, I am only aware of 1 previous record of Dovekie, a bird found dead in Prospect Park in November in the 1930s after a massive storm. Before today I had only previously seen 4 Alcids in Brooklyn (3 Razorbills and a Thick-billed Murre), despite looking at a lot of water in recent winters. 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/ --
