The Brooklyn CBC, held safely on Saturday with National Audubon COVID-19 guidelines, was one of its most successful ever! The 138 species seen yesterday set our highest species count, eclipsing our previous high of 134, set in the last significant finch irruption year of 2012. The confluence of this year’s finch irruption and cold, post-blizzard conditions to the north pushed the birds to coastal areas, and the local snow cover concentrated open ground-preferring birds to tidal beach and marsh edges.
The 45,946 individuals seen was higher than average, made possible by excellent coverage among all sectors, and bolstered by an effort from Brooklyn birders to improve the counting of roosting gulls within the circle. Of the nine species with which we set all-time high counts, a highlight was 2,789 BONAPARTE’S GULLs, the majority seen streaming onto the western Rockaways, with many sticking around in Gravesend Bay and the Rockaway Inlet. We set 10-year highs with an additional 28 regularly-occurring species, mostly from wintering passerines such as WHITE-THROATED SPARROW (943 individuals), and urban raptors like COOPER’S HAWK (21) and COMMON RAVEN(9). Of the several species where we experienced 10-year lows, only 2 NORTHERN GANNETs were seen off Breezy Point. We added two new species for the count, a MEW GULL at Brooklyn Army Terminal Pier 4, and a late VEERY, coincidentally near the Pier 4 Marina in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Rare for the count highlights include irrupting finches, COMMON REDPOLL (7), RED CROSSBILL (7), KING EIDER (5, including one in the Upper New York Harbor, also at Brooklyn Army Terminal), SPOTTED SANDPIPER, LAPLAND LONGSPUR, and lingering passerines MARSH WREN, LINCOLN’S SPARROW (2), OVENBIRD, and YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. TREE SWALLOW, EASTERN MEADOWLARK, and WILSON’S SNIPE were the worst misses, species obviously affected by the snow-covered conditions. Much gratitude to the participants, count leaders, and the Brooklyn Bird Club for being the village that it takes to conduct this count, with special thanks to team coordinator Bobbi Manian, and co-compiler Chris Laskowski. We hope to hold next year’s count under “normal” conditions and welcome all to get involved to make the 2021 count even better. Thanks, Mike Yuan 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/ --
