While out at Jamaica Bay this afternoon doing some Barn Owl box maintenance, I managed to get in some birding on the East and West Ponds. The notables are as follows:
EAST POND: Green-winged Teal (14), Snowy Egret (23), Great Egret (13), Black-crowned Night-Heron (43) - 5 @ Big John's pond and the rest all on the East Pond, Northern Shoveler (37) and Laughing Gull (4). WEST POND: Great Egret (7), Greater Yellowlegs (3) and Palm Warbler (3) on the trail towards the north end. NORTH and SOUTH Gardens: Ruby-crowned Kinglet (3) and Hermit Thrush (1). It was very pleasing to see that the water on the East Pond was much lower than in the past few weeks. It appears that NPS, is testing out the valve system while flushing out the pond in the hopes that any amount of rain we get during spring will help to manage/lower the salinity of the East Pond after the levels were sure to have risen due to the breaches from Hurricane Sandy. Finally, I have uploaded some photos of the Hempstead Lake YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER. Fascinating stuff learning that new research *(genetics morphology)*, is challenging what was once thought to be cut and dry when it came to the subspecific divisions of this species. Many thanks to Tom Johnson and Karlo Mirth who took the time to respond after I noted that the lore color had me puzzled as to the subspecies. See photos here - http://birdingdude.blogspot.com/2013/04/yellow-throated-warbler-at-hempstead.html Good Birding! Andrew Baksh Queens, NY www.birdingdude.blogspot.com -- 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/ --
