Yesterday Heydi Lopes, Keir Randall, Shane Blodgett and I teamed up for a "Big Day" in Kings County. A paucity of land birds combined with fog, cloud cover, east winds and cooler temperatures made for the worst final total that I've ever experienced for a big spring day. My best guess for all the MIA species is that many birds left on the south winds between Thursday evening and Friday evening. Consider that during a scouting run in Prospect Park on Thursday for 3 hours beginning in the late morning I tallied 76 species, which included 21 species of warbler. Yesterday our team spent over 4 hours in the park beginning at around 7am and counted 57 species with a paltry 9 species of warbler. Missing from the expected songbirds list were flycatchers, grosbeaks, tanagers and a few sparrows. Note also that, as a team of 4 decent ear birders, the almost silent canopy made for a very frustrating morning.
Conversely, we did pretty well along the coast finding 15 species of shorebird. Probably the best being a breeding plumage White-rumped Sandpiper at a little visited watering hole in Floyd Bennett Field that I've named "Raptor Point Pond". Another highlight was spotting a pair of ravens that have been hanging around Brooklyn for the last few years. We watched one eating a pigeon from on top of a street light at Bush Terminal Park. I believe that this was the first time we've added this species to our big day list. We finished the day with 108 species and one sp. This is nearly 20 species lower than our previous worse day. It will be interesting to learn about other team/individual's Big Day experiences around the area yesterday. Good birding, Rob http://citybirder.blogspot.com @thecitybirder -- 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/ --
