An impressive movement of birds occurred at Robert Moses State Park this morning. I was alerted to the flight by Pat Lindsay and Shai Mitra while at Sunken Meadow State Park, and headed down to RMSP, arriving by 10:00AM. The flight was still in progress, and the birds were quickly passing by, allowing for only in-flight identification. The immature male Blue Grosbeak was still present, feeding on the north side of the parking lot east of the main entrance. After getting frustrated with fleeting glimpses of many species, I headed down to the volleyball courts at the east end of Parking Field 2 and found a place out of the wind to let the birds come to me. I was quickly rewarded with a calling Alder Flycatcher, a skulking Lincoln's Sparrow, a Black-billed Cuckoo and numerous warblers. Upon leaving this location I heard a singing Mourning Warbler in the parkway median near the Field 2 exit.
At West End/Jones Beach there was not the level of activity compared to RMSP (time of day?), but there were still a decent variety of warblers including Bay-breasted. Twenty species of warblers were seen during the course of the morning and early afternoon. An extra benefit of being on the barrier beach this morning was witnessing the huge flight of butterflies chiefly comprising Red Admirals and American Ladies. This may have been an island-wide phenomena as we observed good numbers of these species in the early morning at SMSP as well. Ken Feustel -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
