Hi all, Over the past two days, Nick Sly and I have birded a variety of locations across Long Island. On Thursday (29-Dec), we checked the Massapequa Preserve, where we were doing some scouting for the Southern Nassau CBC. There, highlights included Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, and 2 Fox Sparrows. Later in the day, we headed to Point Lookout with Drew Panko, Trudy Battaly, and Mary Beth Billerman where we had 3 *Harlequin Ducks* (1 male, 2 female), 6 *Common Eider*, 1 *Red-necked Grebe* (in the inlet), and 1 adult *Black-legged Kittiwake* flying from east to west on the ocean south of the inlet.
Today (Friday, 30-Dec), Nick Sly, Mary Beth Billerman and I headed east toward Montauk. While conditions seemed less than ideal for concentrating good numbers of seabirds, we were pleasantly surprised by what we saw. There were 10+ thousand scoters (all three species) and thousands of Common Eider. Good numbers of Razorbill were also flying past the point (over 100 over the course of the morning flew past the point between the lighthouse and Camp Hero), and a single *Common Murre* that we observed sitting on the water from Camp Hero. We also saw 19 *Purple Sandpipers* on A quick check of Montauk Harbor turned up no cormorants, but there was an adult *Iceland Gull* loafing with the Herring Gulls on the jetty. We ended the day watching the *Mountain Bluebird* in its usual spot just east of Hulse Landing Rd. along Rt. 25a. Good birding, Shawn Billerman -- 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/ --
