I birded the above area for about 6 hours (9:00-3:00) today, the main objective a Yellow-headed Blackbird. With the exception of a few extended stops to bird on foot (Iron Pier Beach, Baiting Hollow Boy Scout Camp, Hulse Landing Road power line cut and Sound Avenue Nature Preserve), I spent much of that time driving the area roads looking for large blackbird flocks. In addition to hitting all the locations (2 or even 3 times) where Yellow-headeds had been seen recently, I extended my search north/south from Sound Avenue to River Road (s/o EPCAL) and east/west from Route 25A to Pier Avenue (Northville). Within that area I drove all of the following: Fresh Pond, Edwards, Twomey, Youngs, Osborne, Horton, Roanoke, and Reeves avenues; Manor, Middle, and Pennys roads; Doctor's Path, and Northville Turnpike. Despite that effort I found no blackbird flocks. In fact I found no icterids at all until 3:00, when I spotted 3 Common Grackles picking about in a gravel driveway on the north side of Route 25 just west of Edwards.
But it was not an altogether fruitless trip. An adult ICELAND GULL was present at Iron Pier beach—presumably the same individual that has spent the previous 3 winters there. Just up Pier Ave. a GRAY CATBIRD flew across the road when I stopped to observe a sparrow flock (Song, Swamp, White-throated). The power line cut toward the north end of Hulse Landing Road was loaded with another 7 species of sparrow. Most of those seen were in a big mixed flock of ~100 birds made up primarily of Dark-eyed Juncos, and White-throated and American Tree sparrows, but which also contained Savannah, Song, Vesper (2-3), and White-crowned (2). These moved back and forth between feeding in the brussel sprout fields and taking cover in the adjacent hedgerow. Farther east along the cut was a flock of ~10 Field Sparrows which also contained a single CHIPPING SPARROW. But the real highlight was a flock of ~12 COMMON REDPOLLS which fed and sheltered with the big sparrow flock before eventually flying off to feed farther out in the fields. Also seen in the vicinity were 2 Merlins, 2 Northern Harriers (adult male and female flying close together), 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a few Red-tailed Hawks. A Kestrel was seen while driving about. Some photos up later at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jgluth_brb/sets/72157632448263840/ -- 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/ --
