In addition to the first southbound passerine migrants, observers birding along the south shore of Long Island over the next few days should been on the lookout for Lesser Black-backed Gulls.
Several checklists have been entered into eBird with counts in the high teens and upwards. Derek Rogers tallied 29 on the outer beach at Smith Point CP last night and Mike Anderson logged 37 on the seaward side of Jones Beach (West End) SP that same day (14 Aug 2014). Almost certainly there are many more scattered across the 120 or so miles of ocean beach and perhaps at other staging sites such as the northshore. Has anyone looked at the Lido Beach/Nickerson Beach gull flocks in the past couple of days? Most of the birds seem to be subadults (1st summer, 2nd summer and upwards). It's probably a tad early for the first juveniles to appear and similarly the breeding adults may still be on or near the nesting grounds (Greenland?) but will start coming through soon. Submitting numbers to eBird is a terrific way to pool our individual observations and ultimately decode these mysterious arrivals. It is worth checking the birds for bands as we still do not really understand where these gulls are coming from and going to. Of course be careful to identify subadult gulls carefully. Many of the local 1st summer American Herring Gulls look similar to Lessers at the moment. Cheers, Angus Wilson New York City -- 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/ --
