Dear Dave and all, This is great stuff and a reminder that it is long past time for us to connect the dots and write up a note about the overland spring migration of White-winged Scoters, Red-necked Grebes, and other seafowl in the Northeast.
Following Dave's note below, I've pasted several notes relating to these species' visible spring movements along the outer coast of Long Island, and especially along the more recessed coast of the mainland, from Westchester County and Connecticut to Rhode Island. To summarize very briefly, we often see White-winged Scoters migrating from east to west along these coasts during May, and the folks in the far western LI Sound have documented them heading overland in the evening. Presumably these birds usually make it at least to the Great Lakes, but Dave's observations suggest that sometimes they don't. On a related topic, but in the fall, observers on the ocean coast sometimes fortuitously detect scoters arriving from the north in the morning. Because the flocks are striking the coast on a perpendicular track, the observer must be lucky to be standing at a more or less random place along the shore. These arriving scoter flocks drop lower when they reach the ocean, and then turn either left (ene) or right (wsw), presumably toward wintering grounds off eastern LI/southern New England or further south along the coast, respectively. The notes copied below, include specific instances of westward spring flights of White-winged Scoters and a link to an old paper showing that this phenomenon has been known for more than a century. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________________ From: bounce-125619177-3714...@list.cornell.edu [bounce-125619177-3714...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of David Nicosia [daven102...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, May 8, 2021 7:50 PM To: NY Birds; BroomeBirds Subject: [nysbirds-l] Global Big Day and Massive White-Winged Scoter Flight Broome Co. NY All, Had about 7 hours to bird today so I made the most of it and began at one of our local hotspots - Whitney Point Dam. along Keibal Rd. Jim Hoteling, one of our fine local birders, made it there early and reported an amazing 250+ WW SCOTERS on the dam. I came up quickly and we found even more up the reservoir. We had a close estimate of 400 WW SCOTERS which crushed the Broome Co previous high count record of 27. I also looked around the Finger Lakes county's ebird reports and it looks like this could be a record for upstate NY in the counties away from Lake Ontario/Lake Erie and of course it pales in comparison to the staggering numbers that have been counted from Long Island. This is the most of this species I have ever seen away from the coast by far. There were also other reports of high numbers of WW SCOTERS around the Finger Lakes too. I suspect last night's heavy rain coincided with a big migratory flight of this species and many of these birds were forced down. Amazingly we carefully checked all the scoters and only came up with 1 SURF SCOTER. We also had 4 RED-NECKED GREBES which are rare in Broome Co but regular each year. Keibal rd in Whitney Point is unique in that it has woodland and field habitat that comes right up to the lake. There were quite a few warbler flocks mostly Yellow-rumped, but we also had several other species List for Keibal Rd is here https://ebird.org/atlasny/checklist/S87440451 Upper Lisle County Park was quiet as we hit it midday and it was beginning to get windy with temperatures around 40F. Upper Lisle Co. Park list is here https://ebird.org/atlasny/checklist/S87472754 I totaled 103 species in Broome County which was decent. I wish I had more time. I hope many of you had an awesome day too! Good Birding to all! Best, Dave Nicosia ________________________________________ From: Shaibal Mitra Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 11:54 PM To: NYSbirds-L@cornell.edu Subject: RE: westward spring migration of White-winged Scoters Around 6:00 pm this evening, while watching an impressive gathering of shorebirds on the Cupsogue flats, Suffolk Co., I saw something I've thought about for many years but never seen before. Included below is a thread on the westward spring migration of several species of ocean-wintering waterfowl; we observers on the outer beach see this sort of thing quite often. But sharp observers such as Dick Ferren and Tom Burke, one or two geographic layers up in southwestern RI, CT, and Westchester Co., have sometimes seen these birds actually heading north overland, like Brant. This evening at Cupsogue, I saw a distant flock over the ocean to the east that seemed too high to be cormorants. Putting the scope on them, I saw that most were White-winged Scoters, along with a contingent of dark-winged scoters. Tracking them, they turned north and crossed the barrier beach over the monstrous mansions in Westhampton Beach, at which point the non-White-wings peeled off and returned to the ocean. The 35 or so White-winged Scoters pressed north, then turned to the northwest and rose higher. An amazing thing to see. Here's a phone-scoped shot of the flock passing from se to nw over Moriches Bay: https://flic.kr/p/2exTdzP Tom Burke tells me that Brant were moving heavily up the Hudson River tonight too, as expected on such a fine evening. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________________ From: Shaibal Mitra Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 2:19 PM To: NYSbirds-L@cornell.edu Subject: RE: [nysbirds-l] East Hampton, Main Beach: 16 April Hi Peter and all, It's great to see more data concerning last winter's remarkable southward flight of Razorbills and its aftermath. Regarding the westward spring migration of White-winged Scoters (and also of Red-necked Grebes and Oldsquaws), this is a curious and incompletely understood phenomenon, but it was discerned by the old time gunners during the late 19th Century. See p. 285 here: http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v008n03/p0279-p0290.pdf More recently Dick Ferren and others have logged many days of spring seawatches documenting these flights, so this is a good reminder for us to record flight direction. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ From: bounce-82288377-11143...@list.cornell.edu [bounce-82288377-11143...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Peter Max Polshek [pm...@well.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 12:45 PM To: NYSbirds-L@cornell.edu Subject: [nysbirds-l] East Hampton, Main Beach: 16 April Sea Watch at Main Beach, East Hampton 7:20 AM - 9:30 AM Highlight: Razorbill 99 Surf Scoter 245 White-winged Scoter 44 (almost all heading west; go figure?) Black Scoter 1074 Surf/Black Scoter 60 Long-tailed Duck 3 Red-breasted Merganser 5 Red-throated Loon 291 Common Loon 15 loon sp. 58 Horned Grebe 1 Northern Gannet 631 Double-crested Cormorant 4 Laughing Gull 3 Ring-billed Gull 4 Herring Gull 8 Great Black-backed Gull 20 Razorbill 99 (largest group=11; several groups=6; all heading east) -- -- 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/ --
