The Queens County Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, 18 December. A total of roughly 60 participants (still waiting on some final effort info from some sectors) found 28,701 individuals of 126 species, one of the best counts we've had. An additional 5 species were seen during count week.
Highlights included: *3 New Birds for the Count (day)* First record of Forster's Tern (or any tern if you don't count Black Skimmer) - found by Richard Aracil in the Rockaways First (count day) record of Black Vulture, with four, in the Alley Pond Sector (though we had them during count week in recent years) First (count day) record for Prairie Warbler, at Baisley Pond Park (we have had it once during count week before) *Rare-for-our-count birds* Laughing Gull, 1, in the Rockaways, surprisingly our 26th occurrence Semipalmated Plover, 1, in Atlantic Beach, our 12th occurrence *High Counts* Wood Duck - 25, thanks to the growing year-round population at Kissena Park Redhead - 64, bested old record by two! (bulk were at Baisley Pond) Common Loon - 160 - More than doubling our old best of 74 (did we never have good movement observed on a count day before?) Double-crested Cormorant - 315 - topping the 226 last year Bald Eagle - 6 - Exactly double our best Red-bellied Woodpecker - 127 - previous best 92 (Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers were also near their high counts for us so this is probably at least partially effort-related) Blue Jay - 485 - beats previous best by 40 (effort? or genuinely a lot around?) Tufted Titmouse - 293 - nearly tripling our previous best (definitely far more than usual!) White-breasted Nuthatch - 101 - previous 79 (effort and more than usual around?) Nashville Warbler - 3 - beats our previous high of 2 Orange-crowned Warbler - 9 - beats previous high of 7 Misses and other lowlights Canvasback - World's Fair Marina did not come through this year though we did get it for count week Owls - we only had one Great Horned and one Eastern Screech. No other owls at all. Thanks to everyone who participated! Good (CBC) Birding and Happy Holidays to all! Sincerely, Corey Finger -- 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/ --
