Fort Tilden

Rock rock, Rockaway Beach

Just before New Year's, I went out to Fort Tilden in the Rockaways. I'd never been there before; there are some seabirds that are fairly easy to find there in the winter that I'd never gone looking for.

It's not too bad a trip--took the 5 to Flatbush Avenue and the Q35 bus, very easy. (That's apparently also the way to get to Floyd Bennett Field, by the way.) Once I got there, I found that the maps I had didn't correspond to the territory, but eventually I found a path from the far end of a field next to a parking lot, which led right to the beach.

Horned Larks, working quietly

While traversing that field, I saw some Brant, and when I raised my binoculars to take a look at them, I realized there was a small flock of Horned Larks quietly foraging nearby.

what a lark!

Very pretty birds, only somewhat wary. Really the best view of Horned Larks I've had, even though it was a gloomy day with poor light.

Arriving at the beach in an intermittent light rain, I quickly spotted a lot of Scoters. There was a flock of what I think were a mixture of Surf and Black Scoters a hundred fifty or so yards out--a bit beyond where the waves began to build, anyway--and a few White-Winged Scoters closer in (though not close enough for decent photos). A pair of what were clearly Black Scoters flew by, and a bit later several Gannets did the same, so I quickly had the two main species I had come for.

not-so-Common Eider

Then I spotted a pair of dark ducks with rather elegant profiles, swimming inside the first breaking waves. These turned out to be Common Eiders, which I hadn't expected at all. (And another life bird!)

Palling around

I think these are a male (in back) and a female, transitioning to breeding plumage. They stayed pretty close in, sometimes right at the end of the little jetties along the beach.

close to shore

The photo above gives you an idea how close in they were.

Another thing I didn't expect was a Peregrine Falcon, skimming low over the wet sand and putting up a group of gulls. I think it was hunting Sanderlings, of which there were plenty.

Sanderlings!!!

The Sanderlings moved along the beach in small groups, fine to about fifteen birds at a time, foraging for a while and then flying, always going west.

determined birds

I went east, toward Jacob Riis Park, as the storm broke up and the light broke through. The whole beach was empty, by the way, until I was nearly at Riis Park. A bit spooky, but peaceful.

PC Duck

One Long-Tailed Duck flew in, just before I passed an older man and his granddaughters going the way I came. Farther along, a couple of fishermen were casting into the waves, while more gulls waited patiently for a meal to present itself.

Seascape with Eiders

I'll finish up with one more photo of the Eiders in the surf. I highly recommend a visit if you don't mind the winter solitude.

Cruising and scrambling for new birds

Lapland Lonspur

Last weekend, a Lapland Longspur was spotted on Randall's Island. This was the first sighting of one on land in New York County since probably the 1950s (there have been some flyovers). I was lucky enough to get a nice look at it after some adventures.

Sunday began with an Audubon harbor "eco-cruise" through New York harbor, past the Verrazano Bridge to Hoffman and Swinburne Islands. Elena and I and our friends Barbara and Jim were among the 60 or so people who piled on a NY Water Taxi at the South Street Seaport. There were a lot of other birders, but most people were there to see the Harbor Seals that winter around the islands.

Bonaparte's Gull (and Ring-Billed Gull)

We saw plenty of birds first, pointed out by tour leader Gabriel Willow. We stopped off Governor's Island where Double Crested Cormorants and a couple of Great Cormorants basked on the piers, and we saw a sizable flock of Black Ducks around the Island. There were dozens of Bonaparte's Gulls swimming off and flying around the Brooklyn shore.

Long-Tailed Duck

There were a large number of Long-Tailed Ducks, many in flight, recognizable by their bold black-and-white pattern. They were hard to photograph, as were the several Red-Throated and Common Loons we spotted.

Swinburne Island

Hoffman Island and Swinburne Island are artificial islands that were used for quarantining immigrants. Long abandoned, they are now home to large numbers of gulls, to nesting colonies of egrets and herons in the summer, and to overwintering seals in winter.

the seal also watches you

The seals who were basking on rocks offshore slid into teh water as the boat approached, but they seemed curious about us.

gulls on the rocks with a twist of cormorant

The rocks off both islands were covered with loafing gulls, One Double-Crested Cormorant was hanging out with the Herring Gulls there.

composition with Great Black-Backed Gulls

There were also Great Black-Backed Gulls, who stayed mostly a bit apart from the Herring Gulls. They also took over all the wood pilings.

doing the Great Cormorant hop

One Great Cormorant was on the pilings with the Great Black-backeds. Bigger gulls get a bigger cormorant.

distant Surf Scoter

I spotted this unfamiliar duck well to the south of Swinburne Island. Gabriel Willow ID'd it as a Surf Scoter, the first he'd seen on a harbor cruise, and a life bird for me. I really recommend these Audubon cruises; you can get details of upcoming cruises from the NY Water Taxi website.

While we were on the boat, an email from the NYSBIRDS-L mailing list reached my phone about a Lapland Longspur on Randalls Island. I had some trouble getting there--thanks MTA!--and whej I arrived it started to rain. Luckily there were several birds watching the Longspur. Unluckily, just as I was getting to where they were, a dog someone had let off leash (illegally, of course) flushed the bird.

Longspur taking a look around

All ended well when William Haluska refound the bird and pointed me at it. Thanks, William! I watched the bird creep through the brush along the rocks at the water's edge while the rain grew heavier and everyone else left, and then suddenly it popped up on a rock and posed in the open for a minute.

OPB: Hits and misses

One of the disadvantages of productive employment is that I have less time for birding and wind up chasing birds based on reports I've seen. Other people's Birds, OPB.

Sometimes this works out fine. A bunch of people had seen a Long-tailed Duck at the bridge over the Harlem River at Broadway. So I went up there bright and early on Saturday.

Long-Tailed Duck, what the old-timers still call an Oldsquaw

Very nice-looking drake, hanging out with a female Ring-Necked Duck. On the way home, I went to Central Park. When I got there, I saw a report on-line, only an hour old, of a Scaup on the Reservoir. "Oh, I can do that", I thought. Turned out I couldn't. No Scaup for me. Also no Long-Eared owl, which has been spotted several times in the past few days, originally in the Shakespeare Garden.

That night, I saw reports from Randall's Island, where one observer had seen a bunch of interesting birds--Killdeer, Green-Winged teal, American Wigeon, Common Goldeneye--so that's where I spent Sunday.

pretty close for Common Goldeneyes

The Goldeneye were there, two drakes and a hen, between the south shore and Mill Rock. This was actually the best look I've ever had at them. The drakes were diving, but it was the female who was being harassed by a young Herring Gull. Very strange--normally gulls attack ducks after a dive, when they might be coming up with food. I think maybe this one had a bright idea--"they always come up with food after a dive so if I force one under, I'm perfectly placed to grab it when she comes up." That would be unusually complex reasoning for a gull, even though completely wrong.

Common Goldeneye female, in between annoyances

On the north tip of the island, I failed to find the Wigeon or Teal on the Bronx Kill, but a Killdeer was poking along the mudflats.

Killdeer and American Black Ducks

A pretty good weekend in all. A few more weeks and there'll be some many birds coming in, it will hardly matter when the online reports say. I can do my own hunting.

contented Killdeer

Ha ha! Just kidding. I'll be looking at the reports even more then. Golden-winged Warbler, come on out!

First day of Spring

Today was the first day of Spring, and I spent the afternoon in Inwood Hill Park. Walking along the river, I saw something moving on the river, screened from me by a tree on the bank. It dove, and I anxiously scanned the water for its return. And there it was, just a few yards offshore:



A Long-Tailed Duck, a life bird for me and my 80th species of the year. So I've made two trips to Inwood Hill, and gotten two lifers and two other year birds. Nice!

There was a raptor soaring north over the Bronx. It seemed too small for a Red-Tailed Hawk. Maybe a Red-Shouldered, but I couldn't make any field marks on it.

The interior of the park was very quiet--I could hear Cardinals singing and Jays calling, but there were few other birds, not even sparrows. But it was a beautiful day for a walk in the woods.