Hi Trish and all, It is unusual, but not really rare, to see White-winged Scoters on Long Island during summer. Taking the island as a whole, there are records every summer, with the Montauk and Orient areas hosting these birds most often.
Some of these birds, when studied closely, show signs of injury or illness, but I don't think that disability fully explains the pattern of over-summering behavior. For one thing, there are striking disparities among our various winter waterfowl species in their frequencies of summer occurrence. Being shot or finishing the winter under-nourished would be expected to affect selected sets of species in roughly similar ways, but White-winged Scoter occurs much more often than Surf Scoter, for example. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________________ From: bounce-120604946-3714...@list.cornell.edu [bounce-120604946-3714...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Trish Bonadonna [naturemo...@optonline.net] Sent: Monday, July 4, 2016 10:16 PM To: NYSBIRDS-L@cornell edu Subject: [nysbirds-l] Great South Bay near the "Smith's Point" While canoeing and fishing the bay, I saw an unmistakable white-winged scoter near Smith's Point marina boat launch. Didn't know they were still around, so was really surprised to see him. Is this an injured bird that couldn't migrate? Was then happy to see two purple martins and quite a few seaside sparrows in the marsh grasses. Happy Birding, Trish B Sent from my iPad -- 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/ -- ________________________________ Take a picture. Write a caption. Win a prize. Where’s Danny the Dolphin today?<http://www.csi.cuny.edu/wheresdanny/> -- 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/ --
