The most remarkable thing in a morning's birding around the Brooklyn coast this morning was the count of 36 American Kestrels in the Floyd Bennett Field grasslands, which is by far the highest I have ever seen on the ground in one place on Long Island, echoing Doug Futuyma's recent large number out east. There had been good numbers of Kestrels around Floyd Bennett over the last couple of weeks, but the highest numbers being reported had been about a dozen or so, which is still reasonably high. I also counted 9 Red-necked Grebes from the Boat Ramp parking lot at Floyd. Singles of Great Cormorant and a probable Common Goldeneye were also notable.
At Coney Island Creek Park this morning, there were at least 11 (presumably newly arrived) Eastern Phoebes, which is a large number for such a small parcel of habitat, and there were also at least 4 more Eastern Phoebes around the vacant lot at 35th St. and the boardwalk in Coney Island, as well as couple of more seen at different times flying very high over the concrete jungle in active migration. Calvert Vaux Park had ~40 Yellow-shafted Flickers, mostly feeding on the ground on the westernmost grass field. Horned Grebes were also evident in large numbers, and displaying the full suite of plumages from winter plumage to full-on breeding plumage. I counted well over 100 from various points, despite the limited visibility early due to the smoke covering the area. Good Birding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- 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/ --
