...with apologies for the delay.
The 10th Annual Seatuck LI Birding Challenge was conducted on 16 September this year, in very pleasant weather. As the rosy fingers of dawn lit the sky, it was 61° and mostly cloudy under northwest winds, warming up into the mid 70s and clearing to mostly sunny skies, with low humidity. This year’s competition felt very different; we did not have any junior teams competing, and the formidable, perennial champion Pteam Ptarmigeddon defected to go storm-chasing in Massachusetts. This left only three teams in the field, with a total of 12 participants. There were two Island-wide teams, The Four Harbors Herons and the Small Day Birders, and the Captree Bombay Hornadays reprised their Big Sit at the Fire Island Hawkwatch, initiated in 2018. There was no coverage on the east end of Long Island, nor for Brooklyn, and the water level was unfortunately quite high at Jamaica Bay, with fewer than normal shorebirds detected. Not surprisingly, the overall total of 131 species was quite reduced from our long-term average of 167, and included no new species, so the cumulative list total remains at 247 species over the ten years. Among the many highlights were the healthy number of warbler species seen by the Four Harbors Herons, including Tennessee, Cape May, Bay-breasted, and Wilson’s; a Broad-winged Hawk spotted by the Small Day Birders, a bird that is always scarce on Long Island, away from the flyways of the city parks; and the mash-up of migrants, including a nocturnal migrant Gray-cheeked Thrush and a cooperative day-flying Common Nighthawk, past the the Fire Island Hawkwatch. The three teams’ totals were remarkably similar, and with so few teams in the field, the number of “saves” (species not seen by any other team) for all the teams reached record numbers. The Four Harbors Herons took first place with 89 species, which included 15 saves. The Captree Bombay Hornadays, a hybrid mixture of several past team groupings, came in second with 85 species and 22 saves (retaining the Hunters’ Hoard), and the Small Day Birders followed up with 82 species and 16 saves. The compilation was festive and intimate, and a great chance for the 12 participants and the Seatuck folks to reconnect. Thanks to Enrico Nardone, Peter Walsh, and the Seatuck team for organizing and hosting this enjoyable friendly competition. For more information on this important organization and information on this annual event, go to www.seatuck.org/birding-challenge We hope to see everyone back next year, and as always, we welcome new teams to join us! Pat and Shai Bay Shore, NY -- 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/ --
