Another day of sustained southeast winds and patchy stormy conditions, another morning on dawn patrol at Field 2. I was on site from 6 to 10 and observed the following:
286 Cory’s Shearwaters 42 Great Shearwaters 23 Sooty Shearwaters 2 (or more) Manx Shearwaters 80+ distant, unidentified shearwaters 2 Wilson’s Storm-Petrels 2 (or more) Parasitic Jaegers 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls in the lot My first young of the year Laughing Gull, and several fledgling Least and Common Terns Seabird movement was great in between bands of rain. Around 7:10, a feeding frenzy of shearwaters formed over a hunting pod of Bottlenose Dolphins just beyond the breakers out from the life guard chair. A few dozen Cory’s, a handful of Greats, and flyby Sooty and Manx Shearwaters all checked out the scene, and an Osprey even plunged into the melee at one point. One of the storm-petrels hung around to feed for a little while, too. Movement has slowed down but it hasn’t stopped. Interestingly, a westbound flight of Sooties began just after 9:30, when only 2 had been seen heading east with the rest of the shearwaters earlier in the morning. That procession, as well as a continuing trickle eastbound birds, was still ongoing when I folded up my scope. These past few days of favorable conditions have been a great change of pace from the July norm! Cheers! -Tim H -- 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/ --
