I started the day off by falling out of bed, so I figured I might as well go birding. Looking at the radar around dawn, I noted that the heaviest echoes were off the south shore (like I know what I'm looking at). I had already planned to go to Jones Beach, and that is where I got myself to, bright and early at 9 A.M. With the caveat that Jones Beach is not my primary spot for spring passerines - typically once a year - I will say that it was the best spring day I've ever had there. Variety was good and numbers were good. So much so that I spent 6 hours walking around the West End median area - way more than I expected out of this day. I had about 15 species of warblers in the first couple of hours - which would have put me on pace for about 45, but I chose to focus on photo subjects. It's not often that you're presented with a multitude of forest species at low heights. I will tell you, though, low birds does not mean open, cooperative birds. I won't present a long boring species list - you all know what migrates through now. I will give a shout out to a common species that was especially common today - American Redstart. Two thoughts crossed my mind. In a couple of spots, it was like when you look through Yellow-rumps to find something else. And, I haven't seen so many Redstarts at Jones Beach since the aftermath of Hurricane Gloria (not that today was in a league with that fall out). The web site is overdue for an update, so I posted some pictures to prove I saw something at http://stevewalternature.com/ .
On a different note - I don't know if this will be posted, so I'll mention that I got a second hand report of a brief visit to the Forest Park waterhole by a Prothonotary Warbler this morning. Steve Walter Bayside, NY -- 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/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
