The last three days along the Brooklyn and Queens coast have been a great study in the dynamism that is bird migration in late October.
On Friday morning, I birded an exceedingly foggy Plum Beach in Brooklyn after a modest night flight overnight (visible on Nexrad radar). The dunes had a surprising amount of passerines, with Yellow-rumped Warblers dominating (as seems to always be the case at this date), with several flocks surreally moving westbound through the dense fog as they searched for more suitable land. The marsh had its usual excellent array of marsh sparrows with at least four taxa tallied (*Seaside*, *Saltmarsh*, and *Nelson’s* (both Interior and Atlantic Coast types). Passerine rarities that were likely thanks to the weather were a *Dickcissel* feeding in the marsh as if it were one of the marsh sparrows, and a *GRASSHOPPER SPARROW* seen nicely (once the fog lifted) in the dunes along with plenty of Savannahs and Songs. A rare-for-Brooklyn *LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER* appeared out of the fog with a small flock of Greater Yellowlegs but they continued on to the west. I spent the past two mornings at Breezy Point in Queens, to see what the visible migration situation would be like during these two opposing wind conditions on back-to-back days. Yesterday, the moderate SW wind produced a very good waterbird flight of westbound birds over the ocean, with the highlight species being a group of *3* *HARLEQUIN DUCKS* amidst a large migrating flock of Black Scoters (of which more than a thousand passed through the morning). The passerine flight was also interesting, with double digit numbers of both Pine and Blackpoll Warblers jumping off into the headwind to migrate across the bay, a few Cape May Warblers, and an unseen *Lapland Longspur* flight calling its way through, and over *2,300 Pine Siskins*. The coolest event (and the one I've seen fewest times) for me, however, was watching a group of 25 Black-capped Chickadees take flight from the western end of the dunes and get up high in an abortive attempt to migrate across the bay. After this, chickadees sporadically flew up into the headwind towards the jetty before returning to the dunes, but eventually at least four set sail into the wind and continued over the bay. Today, after a much more classic big post-cold front nocturnal flight, the dunes and scrub were pulsating with birds first thing in the morning, mostly sparrows (White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos dominating). Migration was very dispersed and multi-directional due to the easterly component of the wind (it was Northeast for most of the morning), and many birds were very high. It was while looking for these high flocks that I came across what turned out to be a *SANDHILL CRANE* hauling westward very high up. When it got well out over the mouth of lower New York Bay it circled for a minute or two and then headed south towards Sandy Hook. This was interesting timing, because there has been a Great Blue Heron at Breezy Point for the past two days which has been flying around only with its neck fully extended, and I had been meditating on how superficially similar-looking to Sandhill Cranes they can be when doing this. That heron is likely still around. As I was returning to the parking lot later on, I encountered a *HENSLOW'S SPARROW* which flushed out of a patch of bluestem grass and perched in a Bayberry Bush for a minute or two. After it vanished, I tried to re-find the bird with another nearby birder for about 40 minutes but we sadly came up empty despite an intensive effort. There are a lot of dunes for such a skulky species to disappear into. Afterwards I swung by Riis Park, where walking various excellent looking patches of weedy habitat and dune scrub yielded *Marsh Wren *(Neponsit field)*, Nelson’s Sparrow, Orange-crowned Warbler*, and 3 Eastern Meadowlarks. Viva la migración -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm 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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
