I did a roving hawkwatch at Greenwood Cemetery today, jumping between several locations within the cemetery to see which was best in the SW winds. While there was a moderate diurnal migration involving a few species, it wasn't particularly heavy, and the winds had shifted to north of west by noon. My composite results of migrants were: Canada Goose-260, Double-crested Cormorant-15, Great Blue Heron-1, Osprey-1, Turkey Vulture- 11, Red-tailed Hawk- 1 (6 additional local birds though), Cooper's Hawk- 2. I also saw 12 different flocks of balloons on this balmy day, unfortunately.
At Coney Island Creek Park, there was a single Eastern Phoebe, and 2 Great Egrets flew by, as did an extremely ratty Common Raven. This individual had really chopped up wings, and it was difficult for me to judge whether it was missing feathers, had broken feathers, or some combination of the two. The Raven flew north across Coney Island Creek and disappeared behind some apartment buildings somewhere north of the Belt Parkway. This bird is certainly distinctive, and can be differentiated from other Ravens in the area rather easily for the time being I should think. At Floyd Bennett Field I ran across another Common Raven getting assaulted by ~10 American Crows that escorted it out over Dead Horse Bay to the west. This was clearly a different individual than the previous bird because, aside from the disparate locations, this bird appeared to be only missing one secondary, and looked to be in much better shape than the Coney Island bird. There was also a Chipping Sparrow at the Cricket Field. **** **** As for the Gull that Shane Blodgett and I encountered at Floyd Bennett Field last week, all opinions that I've gotten from various people very familiar with Thayer's Gull have rather strongly backed up our initial tentative identification of Thayer's Gull. Since the post to this listserv did not have many public responses, especially regarding this individual specifically, I think it would be appropriate to recap some of the comments I recieved off-list, notably those that deal with any lingering concerns about it being a Thayer's Gull. The only concerns brought up were slightly paler mantle color, the amount of black in the primaries being on the dark end of the Thayer's spectrum, no black apparent on P5, and the brightish bill coloration. The amount of black on P5 and the pattern of the upperside of the primaries matches several Thayer's Gull depictions from these sources: the link provided by Kevin McGowan previously on this listserv, photos of Thayer's Gulls from Duluth, MN: http://www.pbase.com/karlbardon/thgu http://www.pbase.com/karlbardon/adult_thayers_gull_primary_patterns http://www.pbase.com/karlbardon/thguadults and renderings of the Iceland/Kumline's/Thayer's cline on BNA sent to me kindly by Ron Pittaway. The mantle color was termed a non-issue by several people familiar with THGU, because it can be as light as to overlap with Kumlien's Gull, let alone Herring Gull. Ron Pittaway was also kind enough to demonstrate this by pointing out a study made on 80 adult breeding specimens in the Canadian Museum of Nature that showed an overlap between Thayer's and Kumlien's Gull. Bill color and intensity varies by season and individual, and while most Thayer's Gulls in basic plumage right now may have duller bills than this bird, this was presumably a migrant making its way to breeding plumage, although not having undergone its full head molt. Most respondents don't see this as much of an issue Every person that I got a response from was agreeable with the ID of Thayer's Gull, with the least favorable response being: "This looks pretty good to me." Other responses said that it would be called a Thayer's Gull if it were seen in Ontario, Illinois, California, Niagara and on Lake Ontario and Superior. Shane and I both concur strongly that it is a Thayer's Gull as well. ***** ***** Also of note from Brooklyn, on the morning of 3/16 (Wednesday) during the really wet/overcast/windy weather, there were 51 Bonaparte's Gulls sitting on the beach at Coney Island Creek Park, and I estimated my highest number of Long-tailed Ducks ever from Coney Island Pier: 6,000-8,000. This may be a decent representation of how many there are normally well offshore here during the winter, but I'm assuming their numbers have swelled as they stage for migration (Didn't check today, many could well have departed since). Either way, the fog just happened to bring them in closer to shore than usual. There was also a good movement of Northern Gannets, with at least 34 counted (and definitely undercounted since my attention was mostly on the LTDUs) most moving by in groups of 2-5 individuals. Good Birding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- 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/ --
