NYNN: brief summary: The Northern Nassau Christmas count was held on Saturday, December 18th amid pleasant weather conditions (compared to last year's count.)
A total of 105 species were observed including 16 Northern Gannets on Long Island sound, Common Raven for the second year in a row, 9 Wild Turkey, Green Heron, Palm Warbler, Orange-crowned Warbler, and Lincoln's Sparrow. Notable misses included Black-crowned Night Heron (always a few hiding somewhere), Canvasback, Black & Surf Scoter, and Greater Yellowlegs. Landbirds were in generally low numbers and seems to be representative of counts with nice weather where birds may be dispersed over a wider area seeking food. Most of the still and sheltered waters (ponds, creeks, interior salt marsh) were frozen. Long Island sound continues to harbor enormous numbers of Greater Scaup. Last year's Northern Nassau count recorded 20,095 which was the highest count for the United States that year. This year, 20,758 Greater Scaup were recorded, a new record for our count and likely will be the highest total for the country again. (The all-time highest count for the United States for Greater Scaup was recorded in 1953 on the Queens County Christmas count: 57,529.) Hopefully, this is a statement for the health of Long Island sound. 20 000 scaup must consume a huge amount of food and they're getting it from somewhere in the sound. According to an older study, their primary food is Blue Mussel, Dwarf Surf Clam, Sea Lettuce, and something called the Channeled Barrel-bubble (whatever that is; sounds like something you get after you eat). A link to the interesting article on scaup feeding habits: http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v074n04/p0459-p0468.pdf Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, Glenn Quinn, compiler -- 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/ --
