Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!
In my previous listserve email I regrettably mentioned that the Captree
Christmas Bird Count missed Bonaparte’s Gull. This was a heinous error which I
sincerely apologize for broadcasting. The Heckscher team (via Tim Dunn) had one
bird, which narrowly saved it for the count!
This error was does not change the species total for the count, as broadcast.
Best wishes,
Taylor Sturm
Sent from my iPhone
> On Dec 24, 2021, at 16:09, Taylor Sturm wrote:
>
>
> The 59th Captree Christmas Bird Count, in southwestern Suffolk County, was
> conducted on Sunday, December 19th, 2021. The count had an impressive
> showing of participants who were thankfully able to dutifully cover their
> areas, all while continuing to take strict COVID-19 precautions. The day
> started off with less-than ideal weather; with scattered early-morning
> showers which eventually dried out, but the weather ended up turning windier
> than desirable.
>
> After a small cold snap earlier in the fall, sustained higher-than-average
> regional temperatures (including those north of us) provided a similar
> pattern to other Long Island CBC's: numbers of seabirds were very low (9 Surf
> Scoter, 31 White-winged Scoter, 79 Black Scoter, 12 Common Eider, 0
> Razorbill) and numbers of half-hardy birds were well represented. Continuing
> to echo other CBC's, we broke our previous high count of White-throated
> Sparrows with 1,097 and completely missed Bonaparte's Gull- a species which,
> while declining on Long Island CBC's generally, was so numerous last year as
> to set a new high total. Fish Crow and Brown-headed Cowbird numbers were
> also remarkably low, with only 19 and 2 observed, respectively. In addition,
> and unsurprisingly, all "winter finches" except Purple Finch were missed.
>
> The greatest disappointment was certainly the fact that the previous day's
> Northern Lapwing (found at Santapogue Creek, in the Gardiner Territory, by
> Mike Vedder) had vanished overnight and was not seen on the count day.
> Amazingly, that was one of three new Captree CBC additions to the checklist
> alongside Short-billed Dowitcher (Gardiner) and Clay-colored Sparrow
> (Seatuck)- though these latter two species were seen on the count day. A
> putative Great black-backed by Herring Gull hybrid would be an additional
> "form" for this checklist, too.
>
> On count day, 36,391 individual birds of an impressive 128 species were
> counted. This species total is equal to last year (tying our ten-year max),
> but well above the 59-year average of 116 species and ten-year average of
> 121.
>
> A sampling of our more unusual birds (ordered somewhat taxonomically) are
> listed below:
>
> Cackling Goose - East
> Canvasback - Gardiner
> Red Knot - Fire
> Harlequin Duck - East
> Red-necked Grebe - Fire
> Virginia Rail - Seatuck & East
> American Oystercatcher - Jones
> Long-billed Dowitcher - Gardiner
> Short-billed Dowitcher - Gardiner
> American Woodcock - Seatuck
> Wilson's Snipe - Seatuck
> Great Black-backed x Herring Gull - Belmont
> American Bittern - East
> Great Egret - Belmont & Heckscher
> Black-crowned Night Heron - Gardiner & East
> Red-shouldered Hawk - Belmont
> Northern Saw-whet Owl - Seatuck & East
> Eastern Bluebird - Connetquot
> Marsh Wren - Gardiner, Seatuck, & East
> Purple Finch - North
> Palm Warbler - Fire & Jones
> Pine Warbler - Connetquot & Seatuck
> Orange-crowned Warbler - Belmont, Seatuck, & Heckscher
> Clay-colored Sparrow - Seatuck
> "Ipswich" Sparrow - Gardiner
> Rusty Blackbird - Belmont
> Eastern Meadowlark - Gardiner, North, Heckscher, & East
>
> In addition to what was observed on count day, observers had three excellent
> count-week birds: the aforementioned Northern Lapwing (Gardiner), Eastern
> Phoebe (Gardiner), and a very late Blue-headed Vireo (Gardiner).
> Unfortunately a Lapland Longspur found yesterday by Joan Q at Robert Moses
> was just outside the count week!
>
> As mentioned above, White-throated Sparrow represented a new high count.
> Additional new maxima included Canada Goose (9,322), Greater Yellowlegs (14),
> Great Horned Owl (7), Northern Saw-whet Owl (5), Common Raven (18- prev. 4),
> Chipping Sparrow (11), & Pine Warbler (5), among others. Thankfully we
> didn't come close to touching 1971's high count of European Starling which
> was 150,000.
>
> While some numbers were low, we luckily managed to avoid too many
> unbelievable misses (though certainly more than we would have liked!). Some
> species which are scarce and tough to pin down like Wild Turkey and Great
> Cormorant were missed. So too were species which can sometimes be reliable
> but have been hard to find this winter such as Bonaparte's Gull, American
> Pipit, Razorbill, and Common Grackle. Snowy Owl was also a miss, despite it
> apparently being a good winter for them in our region.
>
> Once again, concerns for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic p
