Hearing and seeing for myself this morning the troubles encountered by many shearwaters, I was puzzled as I thought just what Shai mentioned - that the wind speeds were never in the range that would cause them difficulties. To my recollection, few, if any, were seen after Hurricane Irene (when everything else was seen). In my yesterday morning observations at Robert Moses, there was no sign of any distress. Most of the birds could not be considered to be especially close to shore. Yea, they were closer than they like to be, but this sort of thing happens often enough. No harm with that. Winds during the morning were under 15 mph, with the fog more likely the reason that they were where they were.
So what happened after that? The winds did increase to at least 22 mph. Let's say I'm being conservative and there were gusts up to 30 or 35 mph. That's still nowhere the winds encountered in major storms. That in itself shouldn't have been a big deal. Usually, winds like that would be expected to scour out morning fog. But this fog kept fighting back into the afternoon, even if more localized by then. Did the combination of fog and strong wind push shearwaters into perilous situations? Considering that the Point Lookout / Nickerson shoreline is inset from Jones Island, did flying into an inlet cause a problem? What about difficult to see obstacles, such as jetties? Shai suggested that birds could have already been exhausted prior to Sunday. I haven't heard much information on when distressed birds (other than the booby) began being found. And what was the extent of the "wreck"? We know about Nickerson. I saw John Zarudski (from Hempstead Town's Conservation and Waterways Dept., I believe) this morning and he mentioned that birds were picked up at Jones, as well. Granted there is little coverage much of the way until Robert Moses, but were there distressed birds elsewhere? Let me throw in that to my current knowledge, only Great Shearwaters were wrecked. Shai has pointed out that Greats are usually less common in these inshore flights. Do they have a bigger problem inshore than other species? Is the wreck sample just a function of the fact that the flight was predominantly Great? Just something to pose, until someone notes that distressed Cory's were also found. Anyway, more shearwaters were found on Nickerson Beach this morning, both dead and alive. Just single digits, so we have that to hold on to. I saw two individuals on the water close to shore. One was able to fly a short distance out a couple of times, only to be pushed back in by the waves. I don't know its outcome. The other bird was eventually pushed into the intertidal area. I picked this one up to keep it from being battered by waves, baby sitting for it until it could be picked up to be sent to rehabilitation (yea, I never imagined myself holding a shearwater in my hands). I only saw one bird a safe distance out. My impression was that it may have been recovering or fighting its way back from a near shore encounter. I did not see healthy migrants, but didn't really expect that in today's clear conditions (even with the continuing wind). Steve Walter -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm 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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
