This AM & PM until 2 o'clock, I was housebound waiting for a scheduled delivery, a chore I had to do because my wife was one of the worker bee's at the annual "High Tea" the women in our condo community so look forward to. The moment FEDEX put Zagat's latest installment within my front door, and I signed for same, I was off, on the latest of my "crossbill quests" - unfortunately, with the same negative results ! This was the 3rd time in as many days that I have looked for them - twice on the s/shore (Cupsouge to Shin.Inlet) and once on the n/shore (Sunken Meadow SP). After checking most of the pines on Dune Rd., I found myself at the inlet hoping I might get something good, or at least interesting...and that did happen. Upon arrival at the lower p/lot, 1 lone C.Eider was in the water swimming toward the inlet, and except for a small # of common gull species and Red-breasted Mergansers, that was it. As I headed for the end of the w/side jetty, a flock of ~150 low, hard flying eiders blew past me, with a 2nd smaller flock (~50-60 birds) following them about a minute later. Approx. 5 minutes after that, 2 flocks of ~ 30 eiders each, did the same thing. Once past the mouth of the inlet where the high pounding waves were breaking, the birds seem to head out to sea in a s/easterly direction. The only individuals I am sure of were the adult male c.eiders (~ 20-25) with the others being mostly just "brown birds". In total, this number (~260-270) is short of what we've experienced in recent years at this location, but this is the first time I have seen this amount of eiders leave calmer waters for the much rougher open ocean, especially because the time was close to 5:00 PM Cheers,Bob --
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/ --
