To put the Red Crossbill sighting in context, I was doing a migration watch at the turnaround at Jones Beach West End. I left off yesterday saying that I was hoping for a notable finch flight. I guess any flight that includes crossbills would qualify as notable - even if the overall numbers were modest. About 250 Goldfinches were counted, along with 4 Purple Finches, a rare for this year Pine Siskin (seen with Doug Futuyma), and the flock of 7 Red Crossbills. Other passerines recorded were about 250 Red-winged Blackbirds, 3 Common Grackles, 10 American Robins, an American Pipit, and a Baltimore Oriole. Modest indeed, but it is late November. These diurnal flights are usually over by 10 A.M. at Jones Beach (apparently later at the more isolated barrier beach Fire Island, as Shai Mitra tells me). I had planned to be done by that time, but the fortuitous arrival of several people led to socializing that kept me around longer. That socializing nearly masked the call notes of the crossbills as they flew by around 10:10. But fortunately, we were able to confirm the ID when they landed (as often happens with migrating birds at this location). They took off about 15 minutes later. The moral of that part of the story is that this group is long gone, if you're thinking of looking tomorrow. But who knows what the next cold front brings? Maybe lower landing ones? For now, I've posted a long distance crop shot to remember today's by (http://stevewalternature.com/ ).
Back to those Accipiters, I was hoping to get a closer look at the situation today. Shortly after beginning the walk to the turnaround, a large one came around from a blind spot and flew no more than 10 feet right over my head. It doesn't get any closer than that. Just not a good set up for identification, especially at the speed it was going. Two sightings from the finch lookout, one perched and one flying over us were Cooper's of male size range - so no debate there. I did get to talk this morning to people who got closer range pictures yesterday (and I got to see one picture). Very clearly Cooper's. But - are all the references to the same bird? It's funny how many different looking branches this "one" bird is sitting on in the pictures I've seen. 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/ --
