A strong gusty, west wind and winter-like temperatures made for tough birding, but a few some nice birds were present at both Jones Beach and Point Lookout. At the former, up to 3 LITTLE GULLS were seen out on the bay north of the Coast Guard station (I didn't arrive early enough and saw only one). The month-long stay of the NORTHERN SHRIKE continues at the TR Nature Center. After staking out the boardwalk for ~30 minutes with no sign of the bird, I decided to walk the perimeter of a nearby bird nesting area (one of 2 reclaimed parking lots). Along the eastern edge of that field, up near the park road, the Shrike flew up from the ground and landed on a stalk of mullein. It proceeded to hunt around the immediate area for the next 15 minutes or so, allowing plenty of opportunity for capturing digiscoped images. (4 can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jgluth_brb/).
Over at Point Lookout, I used Firemen's Park as my vantage point to scope Jone's Inlet. At the north end of the park (beyond the ball fields), ~200 Bonaparte's Gulls had gathered off the beach where dense mats of sea lettuce had built up along the shoreline. Among these birds were another Little Gull (first-winter) and 1 BLACK-HEADED GULL (photo at link above). A second Little Gull, this one an adult, was seen out toward the middle of the inlet, as were a trio of HARLEQUIN DUCKS (1 male, 2 females), these seen only briefly and elusive thereafter (admittedly, I was concentrating on gulls). -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
