Cuvier's Beaked-Whales and Pelagic Seabirds in New York

July 2019: A way offshore pelagic from Brooklyn in July

Looking back at the blog, I seem to have stopped writing about my local birding and natural history adventures.  I guess the world-birder-travel stuff seems so much more exciting, and the local trips perhaps seems repetitive year-to-year.  But I still get out locally most weekends when I'm in New York, so here's something from closer to home.

Monday, July 22 - 130 miles South of Brooklyn

For most of my 28 years living in New York, pelagic trips were an exercise in futility.  The gulf stream, warm water, and most interesting birds are a very long way from shore in New York.  In North Carolina you can be looking at a wide range of pelagic species an hour from the dock, but in New York you have to steam for 8 hours overnight to get into good water and stand a decent chance of seeing good birds.  For years, folks tried to see things closer in ... I chartered a few boats myself with mixed results ... and then an enterprising chap called Paul Guris got it all properly worked out.

Paul (and his better half, the lovely Anita) is a sea-birding impresario who puts together pelagic trips along the East Coast, mostly in New York and New Jersey.  In my opinion, he single-handedly turned New York pelagic birding from futile to productive over the course of the last five or six years.  Boats now get regularly filled, get out to good waters for decent amounts of time, and see excellent birds.  Indeed over the last few years, Paul's "Paulagics" have turned up Fea's Petrel, Trinidade Petrel and made previously mega birds like White-faced and Band-rumped Storm-Petrels and Black-capped Petrel into regular, gettable birds in New York.

Wilson's Storm-Petrels

This year the boat captains have been making things difficult but when the opportunity to sail on a July 'Paulagic' came up, I signed up quickly.

I should say straight up, I am not a good sailor.  I have been seasick on pelagic boats all over the world, and may unfortunately be semi-famous for it.  I have never been on a Brian Patteson trip in North Carolina without contributing to the chum line and have even failed to hold it together on the relatively placid waters of Monterey Bay.  But 'you don't look, you don't see' so I keep going, keep optimistically taking my dramamine (which unfortunately usually puts me to sleep for half of the trip) and keep soldiering on.  Sea-birds are important ... and cetaceans are even better.

So 9pm Sunday night and off we go again (how do you spend your Sunday nights?).  There's a certain amount of socializing on these trips as they gather together a broad group of New York birders who don't get to see each other every week, but I tend to try to find a quiet bench and spread my sleeping bag early.  Once I've taken my dramamine I'm down for the count, and sleep most of the night, but this time I was vaguely aware that it wasn't the smoothest passage out to the deep water.  Turns out we passed through several thunder storms and took a detour around others, but by dawn we were out where we wanted to be ... over 7,000 feet of water, 130 miles South of New York City.

As the sun came up, the steel gray waters were choppy and the smell of diesel and chum permeated everything on the boat.  I frankly felt somewhat queasy all morning, even passing on the egg and cheese sandwiches that they cooked up in the galley (and I love egg and cheese sandwiches).  But there's something special about dawn on a pelagic trip and, no matter how awful you feel, the excitement of being out there in the deep water takes over and we all staggered to the railing, ready to bird.

Leach's Petrels only show up close to dawn.  It's a strange fact and I'm not sure it applies everywhere, but on New York pelagic trips, the Leach's Petrels are typically seen early in the low light, and then vanish mysteriously.  I'm not sure why, or where they go, but for veteran pelagic birders, the first half hour on the chum slick is Leach's Petrel time and sure enough, they showed up on cue that morning.  A few Band-rumped Petrels showed up too so we got a quick reminder on ID by 'jiz' with the bouncing flight of the Leach's contrasting with the purposeful direct fight of the Band-rumped.

Leach's Petrel

Then, over the next few hours we slowly filled out the list of pelagic birds.  The numbers weren't big, but we got most of the species we expected.  There were a few Great Shearwaters, a couple of Cory's Shearwaters and Audubon's Shearwaters along with a single Manx Shearwater surprisingly far offshore.  An hour or so in I picked up a fast moving back and white bird and called it, but blanked on the name, even though I knew what it was ... Black-capped Petrel.  This species used to be a 'mega' for New York but it's now seen regularly and annually on these trips so we've all gotten a little blasé about them.  Still, in global terms, a very rare bird and they are always fun to watch.  We looked out for it's even rarer cousins too, but it didn't happen that day.

Black-capped Petrel (old photo from N. Carolina)

Beyond the birds, today turned out to be a great day for cetaceans.  First up were a pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins, a good contrast to a later pod of Offshore Bottlenose Dolphins.  The stars of the day, from a dolphin perspective, though were undoubtedly a large pod of Risso's Dolphins that stayed close to the boat for a long time and gave great views.

Risso's Dolphins

I also got a New York State life cetacean, a species I'd seen several times in North Carolina but nowhere else, when we bumped into a pod of CUVIER'S BEAKED-WHALES.  This species is a true oddity, with their white heads and goose-like 'beaks', they just look ... well, odd.  They are also famous as the deepest diving mammal species in any ocean (deeper then Sperm Whales, or even Elephant Seals).  That diving ability means that views are typically brief as when these guys dive, they are gone for a while, maybe 40 minutes before they surface again.  We were lucky then to get a decent view on the surface before they headed down to the depths.  A very cool species.

Cuvier's Beaked Whales

All too soon however, it was time to start making the long run back to shore with a plan to be back at the dock around 9pm.  They way in is often dull.  The die-hard birders persevere and may add a few things (a hammerhead shark sp. and a sea-turtle sp. in this case) but it's generally pretty birdless.  Being a cynical old birder, and high on dramamine, I usually sleep most of the way back in and that was pretty much the case that day.  When we got close to shore though, the weather started to look a little challenging.  We'd been avoiding thunder storms all through the trip, but as we got back closer to Brooklyn,  it was obvious that we were going to have to pass though one in order to get home.

Ahead of us was a wall of black.  The seas were blue and the skies were clear where we were, but we were going to have to go through some very dark and scary looking waters.  As we got closer everyone made their way down to the cabin and when we hit the edge of the storm, all hell broke loose.  From relatively calm seas the waters turned to ugly boiling churn with waves breaking over the bow and thumping down against the sides of the cabin.  It quite literally went dark, from day to night, and as the captain labored to keep the bow into the waves, our progress slowed to a crawl.  Then things got really ugly, a brush from a water-spout slammed the side of the boat and several of the large (12 foot by 3 foot) plastic windows on the boat cabin exploded out of their frames and crashed into the cabin with wind and waves blasting in behind them.  Scenes from the end of the Titanic movies came to mind, and there was me without my dinner jacket.  We did remain surprisingly calm though and I found myself pressed up against a window with other passengers trying to keep the remaining panels in their frames.  Everyone was soaked and a bit rattled but after a very tense 15 minutes or so, the maelstrom started to subside, the sky slowly lightened, and we passed out of the roaring waters and back to calmer seas.  Phew!  'Cheated Death Once Again' as my old friend Steve Howell is fond of saying on pelagic trips.  Definitely an experience ... but let's not do that again please.

So back at the dock and safely home an hour later.  While the trips can be a bit of a slog, the distances long, and the birding time short, you do get to see really good species.  Every time I get off the boat I think that I won't do another for a while.  Then the email goes out announcing a new trip, and I inevitably sign up ready for a new adventure ... who knows what we might see out there next time.

November Magic in New York

Fall Migrants and Vagrants in New York, including an *Mega* Rarity

October was a terrible birding month.  After the excitement of the Lark Bunting and the Brown Booby in September, I basically saw nothing very interesting in October.  Not that I didn't go out; I spent three weekends birding on Long Island and saw, well very little of note.  So on to November, the traditional time for rarities and surprises .... and I was feeling that I could really use a couple of both ....

Saturday, November 4th - Suffolk / Bronx Counties

Friday night, and after the boredom of October birding on Long Island I was looking for something else to do.  Should I spend Saturday hoping that the New Jersey Common Greenshank was still around, even though it hadn't been seen for a few days?  Should I do a ludicrous 15-hour round-trip drive to Niagara Falls for a recently reported Sabine's Gull (a New York State bird for me)?  In the end, I got up late (6am) and made do with another trip to Long Island.  This time though, at least there were some birds.

First stop was Heckscher State Park, where a nice range of late migrant shorebirds had been reported during the week.  My main target was Hudsonian Godwit, a Suffolk County bird for me and sure enough I pulled up to the puddles in the parking lot and immediately saw three of them feeding there along with a nice selection of other shorebirds and ducks.  

Hudsonian Godwits and Northern Pintail

Wondering what to do next, I decided to push further East and ended up birding for a couple of hours along Dune Road in Hampton Bays.  Nothing too amazing here but lots of birds ... Peregrine Falcons, Merlins, returning Common Eiders, Sharp-tailed Sparrows, the change of seasons was very obvious and the weather was clean, bright and autumnally crisp.  A very refreshing place to spend the middle of the day, in fact I was really liking this birding thing again.  I was having so much fun in fact that I though about going on the East Hampton to stay the night and bird Sunday Out East as well.  In the end though, the lure of the Sabine's Gull got the better of me and I doubled back to the City, stopping at Seatuck Creek (and finding a Eurasian Wigeon) and at Orchard Beach in the Bronx for a Black-headed Gull.

Peregrine Falcon (above) and Merlin (below) 

Black-headed Gull, my first for Bronx County

Sunday, November 5th - Niagara Falls

When I got home on Saturday night I saw that the Sabine's Gull at Niagara Falls had been seen again during the day, and so decided to give in and follow my instincts and try to see it.  I ordered the car for 3am, texted Greg Lawrence for advice and then, when he said he wanted to tag along, made plans to meet him near Rochester the next morning.

By 3:15am I was on the road.  I picked up Greg at around 9:30am near Rochester and we arrived at Niagara Falls by 10:45am .... easy!  I had good directions for local expert Willie D'Anna, who's partner Betsy Potter has found the bird a few day earlier, so we went straight to Goat Island then walked down the steps to the Luna Island observation platform perched right on top of the American Falls.  Here we took our place among the tourist but while they were all taking selfies with the falls in the background, we were staring straight down into the churn of water, foam, mist and shattered rocks at the bottom of the falls, the place where the gulls feed.

Lot of Bonaparte's Gulls... thousands of Bonaparte's Gulls ... then a Little Gull .... then after a half hour of scanning the Bonaparte's Gulls, Greg picked out the SABINE'S GULL (NYS #399).  What a beautiful bird, and a New York State life bird.  Not an easy bird to find in New York, they migrate through in small numbers but rarely stick around, so a bird that could be chased was a rare thing indeed.  That was in part why this particular bird had haunted me all week, and even though it was far away in terms of hours driven, I was glad that I went to see it.

Sabine's Gull (above) and with Bonaparte's Gulls (below)

So I felt pretty good, and even though we failed in an attempt to add a Franklin's Gull in Buffalo later,  and even though I had to drive for 7+ hours to get home (and it rained all the way), I came home happy and feeling accomplished.  How could I possible top that, even though Greg had said something that stuck in my mind ... "November is when all the weird rarities show up" he said ... so may be there was a chance of another new bird.  But what could top a Sabine's Gull?

Tuesday, November 7th - Suffolk County

I felt like crap all morning.  I was sick with something and not feeling at all well, even throwing up a couple of times at the office.  By noon I decided to take the afternoon off and headed toward the apartment only to check messages on the subway and see one from Anders Peltomaa asking for a ride to the Corn Crake if I was going .... CORN CRAKE!!!!! What the hell ...

I jumped across into the birding listserves and sure enough, Ken Feustel had found a Corn Crake in Suffolk County (my home county) that morning.  As unwell as I felt, I knew I was going to go for it so I ran home, went up to the apartment, made a bathroom stop, grabbed the camera, made another bathroom stop, jumped in the car and headed out.

There has not been a chaseable Corn Crake in North America .... ever!  The last record from New York State was 60 (!) years ago, and the one before that was 75 years earlier.  The two recent records in Eastern North American were of a bird killed by a cat, and a bird mis-identified and only correctly re-identified from photographs several years later.  This is now a rare bird in Europe where they normally live, and there were basically only two living North American birders who had it on their US list ... until today ....

The drive out was short (in reality) and endless (in my head), not helped by my feeling terrible and coughing and spluttering all the way there.   When I finally reached the spot, parked and rushed over to the gathered birders, Isaac Grant told me that the bird has been visible but had been spooked by a car and vanished into the undergrowth ..... argh!!!!

So the next 10-15 minutes were, shall we say, tense .... there's nothing quite like standing with  group of birders who've seen a rare bird and are chatting away about how wonderful it was, when you haven't yet seen the bird (!).  But my luck help up and before long, the bird nonchalantly wandered back out onto the grass verge and unleashed a storm of shutter sounds from the gathered birding paparazzi.  CORN CRAKE .... NYS (#400) .... amazing.  Then I drove home and passed out, seriously worried that I might have pneumonia ... I was gone for only a couple of hours ... but I now have Corn Crake on my New York State list, so if I die, I'll die happy!

Corn Crake

And we're still only in the second week of November ....  and we weren't done yet ...

Monday, November 27th - Central Park

After spending the Thanksgiving Weekend in Montreal, I got back to New York on Sunday night to hear chatter about a potential Hammond's Flycatcher in Central Park, incredibly right in the same area that had hosted a Pacific-Slope Flycatcher a few years earlier.  So up at dawn and into the park where I joined a small group of birders and got but a fleeting glimpse of a bird that looked good but didn't stick around for photos, before I had to go to head to the office for work.  Luckily though I had a light schedule so planned a long lunch and headed back to the park where a large crowd of birders had now gathered and I got much better views of another New York State bird for my list ... HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER (#401).

Hammond's Flycatcher - Photo: Nathan Goldberg (used with permission)

Luckily Hammond's Flycatcher are a great deal easier to identify than Pacific-Slope / Cordilleran Flycatchers so the ID was quickly established.  This was only the 3rd record of the species for New York State though, so a great bird, and one has to wonder what we miss every year in areas that get a lot less birding attention than Central Park.  November really had produced some good birds, including a trio of New York State birds for me, and so on to December with thoughts starting to turn to new adventures in 2018.

Another Nemesis Bird Vanquished

Finally Seeing Brown Booby in New York State

Friday, September 29th - Suffolk County, NY

How do you decide what your nemesis bird is?  Is it the most common bird you haven't seen in a particular area?  If that were true, then my New York State nemesis bird would have been Mew Gull, which occurs annually and which I've searched for and missed often.  Or is it the bird you've missed, where the misses hurt the most?  I think I tend toward the latter, so after I finally caught up with Black Guillemot in New York this Winter, I decided that Brown Booby was going to be my new nemesis bird for New York State.

Why Brown Booby?  A long drive and a painful miss last Fall was still fresh in my mind.  Plus a bird that I could have seen but for a random change of plan a few years earlier and thus missed on my big year.  And of course,they're cool, in a goofy kind of way ... and I really wanted to see one in New York.

So of course when one showed up in New York, quite close to the City, this Spring .... I happened to be about 450 miles away at the other end of the state.  The bird arrived, and spent all day sitting at, the tern colony at Nickerson Beach giving almost every New York City and Long Island birder great views.  For a while I toyed with driving back overnight to be there in the morning, but the bird did not look well (being covered in tern poop is never a good sign) and sure enough it was found dead in the morning.  Another miss, but at least I hadn't driven all night to miss it.

I didn't think I'd get another chance this year, but fast forward to September and a Brown Booby was found in Montauk Harbor (30 minutes from my house, but unfortunately I was stuck in London then in New York City).  Then another potential state bird showed up nearby when Brent Bomkamp found a LARK SPARROW at Robert Moses State Park.  Two State Birds on Long Island and I was stuck in the City all week!

I decided that, as a grown up, I could keep perspective and wait until the weekend to chase these birds ... but this grown up resolve lasted until only about 10am on Friday, when my will-power evaporated and I jumped in the car and headed out in search of state birds.

Lark Bunting - Photo by Tom Reichert (used with permission)

Stop number one was Robert Moses State Park where the Lark Bunting had apparently been elusive and hard to find near the Volleyball Courts in Field 2.  I found the site easily enough and when I arrived expert local bird photographer Tom Reichert was on site and had just had the bird (!).  A few minutes later it popped up again and I got great views, and what turned out to be terrible out-of-focus photographs .... birders call them "Record Shots" while photographers are much more patient.  So LARK BUNTING joined the New York State list (#397) and I was off again in search of number 398.

Just for contrast, here's my best effort of a shot of the Lark Bunting ... note
how perfectly in focus the pine cones in the background are (!)

So on to Montauk, and the real target of the day.  About an hour later I pulled up onto Star Island Road on Lake Montauk and, following directions from the bird alerts, looked out to the mast of a nearby Yacht .... and there was a suspicious brown lump on top of it .... BROWN BOOBY!

The bird actually flew off fairly quickly and, figuring it would be better seen from South Lake Drive I drove down and sure enough the bird was sitting on another yacht mast, this one much closer to shore.

Brown Booby, Montauk

So two New York State birds in one day, and a little closer to my goal for 400 species in New York State.  The rest of the weekend, and indeed the next few week were anticlimactic after these two star birds, but this at least was a great birding day on Long Island.

American Golden Plover on Long Island

July 4th in the Hamptons

Some Local Birding from my Home in East Hampton

Planned to spend the long July 4th Holiday weekend out at the house in NorthWest Harbor, and with only a few house guests I was able to grab three blocks of time to do some local birding.

Saturday, July 1 - Cupsogue and Mecox

Up bright and early and off in search of a recently reported Sandwich Tern at Cupsogue.  Made a quick stop at Mecox, which was pretty quiet, especially after a Bald Eagle passed over flushing the few birds that there were on the sand bank, then off to Hampton Bays.  This was my fourth trip to Cupsogue this 'tern season' and the first one where I wasn't likely to be the only birder present, indeed the report of a Sandwich Tern the day before (scarce but annual in New York State) looked likely to bring out a crowd.  Menachin Goldstein had posted that the bird was roosting on 'mussel beds' and, not sure where they might be, I took my usual route out towards the flats.

I usually come to Cuposgue close to the top of the rising tide, which concentrates the terns and shorebirds in a place easier to see them up close.  Today though the tide was low and, as I walked in I saw some mussel beds that I don't usually see or scan.  It felt like a good idea to do a quick scan there and sure enough, the Sandwich Tern was one of the first birds I saw, standing out from the Common Terns mostly by being so much obviously whiter, even at a distance.

Bad, distant 'digi-phone' image of a Sandwich Tern.

I put the tern sighting on the New York State rare bird ListServe and soon enough other birders came by to see it.  I then spent the next three hours birding in the area, seeing nothing terribly unusual to be honest, but mostly catching up with other local birders and generally being social.  Standing around chatting on a mud-flat in the middle of a salt marsh is the sort of the birder equivalent of social time, or brunch I guess.

Sunday, July 2 - Whale Watching Boat out of Montauk

After the June pelagic trip got cancelled, I'd been thinking of ways to get to see some of the shearwaters I was still missing for the year.  Sea-watching wasn't coming up with much so I decided to take the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island (CRESLI) / Viking Fleet Whale-watching boat out of Montauk.  For $75, the boat (a big fishing boat) gets you offshore for 5-6 hours and, while it doesn't get out to the canyons or true pelagic waters, it does get you 30-40 miles out to feeding areas where there are (hopefully) whales and sea birds.

Ocean Sunfish or Mola Mola

The ride out was pretty quiet for a while but as we got further from shore I started to pick up a few shearwaters and storm-petrels.  All of a sudden though we found ourselves among the whales and spent and hour or so with multiple baleen-whales - eight Fin Whales and a Minke Whale - pretty much constantly in view.

Fin Whale

Whatever the whales were eating was also good for the sea birds and there were lots of them in the same area.  My estimated counts included 120 Wilson's Storm-Petrels, 80 Cory's Shearwaters (including a Scopoli's Shearwater), 40 Great Shearwaters, 25 Sooty Shearwaters and 4 Manx Shearwaters.  Pretty much all the sea birds I'd been missing for the year .... except for one ....

Cory's Shearwater (above) and Great Shearwater (below)

Mixed Shearwater flock including some Sooty Shearwaters

Manx Shearwater

Then something unexpected happened.  I was looking at a distant flock of shearwaters sitting on the surface when a bird took off and showed huge white wind flashes .... Skua!  Well it turns out that when you shout "Skua!" on a boat full on non-birdwatching tourists out looking for whales, you get some odd looks.  I think I probably scared a few people and no-one rushed over to see what a Skua was.  The bird itself was flying away from us and I was scrambling to get some photographs, so no-one other than me got to see it.  One of the tourists came over after the fact to ask what all the fuss was about, the rest I think just decided that I was a crazy person and kept their distance.

I was very happy though, SOUTH POLAR SKUA is a very good bird in New York State and the bird I was most hoping for on the June pelagic trips that have been canceled due to weather for the past two years.  It was also New York State Bird #396 for me (this was before they lumped Thayer's Gull so I guess I'm back to 395 now).  While I debated the ID for a while wanting to make sure I wasn't being fooled by a large, dark Pomarine Jaeger, I was VERY glad that I had my camera with me, and very happy that I took the boat that day ... great trip.

Two very bad, distant and heavily cropped shots of a South Polar Skua

Tuesday, July 4 - Local Spots in East Hampton

Less time for birding so decided to put some local eBird hours in and checked several spots close to the house, counting Piping Plover and Least Tern colonies, checking up on local breeding warbler sites, and visiting a few spots that don't get a lot of coverage.  I also moved a couple of Eastern Box Turtles away from the road .... lots of good karma built up for future birding adventures.

I ended up seeing 105 species over the weekend in The Hamptons - not bad for a crowded resort area on the busiest tourist weekend of the year.  Despite the crowds, there's still a lot of wildlife to be seen out there, and it is a spectacularly beautiful area.  Happy holidays indeed.

Birding the Beaches ....

Small Scraps of Birding Time on Long Island in June

Saturday, June 3 - Brooklyn and Queens Counties

The day actually didn't start in Brooklyn or Queens, but rather in Somerset County, New Jersey where I chased, and disastrously dipped a LESSER NIGHTHAWK.  I don't often leave New York State when I'm birding locally but if I do it's usually because a bird catches my interest and sticks in my mind.  This bird did just that, originally identified as a Common Nighthawk and posted on-line, then re-identified as (New Jersey's Second ever record of) a Lesser Nighthawk by Ben Barkley, the bird was subsequently found to have been picked-up and re-habbed locally a few days earlier, before being released nearby.  Once free though, it settled into a nice pattern of sitting on a rail fence or along a gravel path at Lord Sterling Park allowing lots and lots of local birders to see and photograph it during its week long stay.  I got there early on Saturday after a rough drive where the Land Rover's navigation system was totally overwhelmed by the road-spaghetti that is Northern New Jersey, sending me the wrong way several times and even directing down a one-way street the wrong way at one point.  Oh and it was raining when I got there, and oh, the bird seemed to have departed during the night never to be seen again.  Not a good start to the day.

Nelson's Sparrow

So back to New York where my first stop, Plumb Beach in Brooklyn, improved my day immeasurably.  There had been reports of a very unseasonal NELSON'S SPARROW singing in the marsh here (not unusual in the Fall, but rare in the Spring) and as soon as I hiked out to the East end of the beach I could hear it singing loudly and see it sitting up in plain view.  This tiny marsh also had Seaside Sparrow and Clapper Rail (both King's County birds for me) so I felt that returning to New York was clearly the right strategy and pushed on to Jamaica Bay in Queens.

As I pulled into the reserve parking lot I picked up and email saying that Tim Healy had just had a Least Bittern at Big John's Pond, so off I went, hoping for the Bittern and perhaps a glimpse of the resident Barn Owls ... I saw neither.  Back to the West Pond where my spirits picked up when two year birds - a Gull-billed Tern and a Tricolored Heron flew into view within minutes of each other.  Back to being in a good mood and, after checking some other local coastal spots, I called it a day.

Tricolored Heron

Sunday, June 4 - New York County

The long anticipated Pelagic Trip out to the Hudson Canyon was cancelled due to weather.  No South Polar Skua for my New York list this year.

Saturday, June 10 - Suffolk County

Cupsogue again at dawn and I opted to take the shorter, calf-deep stinky mud route out to the flats .... just as gross as I remembered it.  The morning did produce a nice clutch of year birds though with Black Tern, Royal Tern, and Seaside Sparrow all joining the year list.

I also checked Mecox Inlet twice that day, hoping for a recently seen Black-necked Stilt.  While that bird was a no show, I did see four Lesser Black-backed Gulls, more Royal Terns and a nice mix of terns and shorebirds.

Common Tern, one of 7 species of terns seen over the weekend and the only
one close enough for a decent photo ...

Sunday, June 11 - Suffolk County

Back at Cupsogue again for the early tide but this time a quick sea-watch proved productive with four Wilson's Storm-Petrels close to shore (I know, Brian Patterson had a Swinhoe's Storm-Petrel in North Carolina this weekend, but I was still happy to see any Storm-Petrel given that our boat trip got cancelled).  The flats were also lively with more Royal Terns, Roseate Terns and some nice scope views of an adult Arctic Tern.  When I first moved to New York, Arctic Terns were almost never reported from the state other than on pelagic trips; now they are seen annually at various tern loafing spots along Long Island.  This doesn't seem to be a case of a change of distribution as much as a case of more observers being better at picking them up - better birders, better optics.  This bird was of course the reason I went to Cupsogue three times, so I was glad to finally get one.  Now the focus shifts to finding a Sandwich Tern!

Great and Snowy Egrets at Three-Mile Harbor in East Hampton

In addition to Cupsogue, I also hit Mecox a few more times and checked out a bunch of the local sites like Three-Mile Harbor, etc.  Nothing amazing there - a Saltmarsh Sparrow was the best bird at Sammy's Beach - but a nice local mix of breeding birds.  A very nice weekend of local birding.

Thursday, June 15 - Nassau County

There had been two Black-necked Stilts at Jones Beach for the previous two weeks ... a bit of a rarity in New York and a county bird (and state year bird) for me.  I was there at 6:00am, just in time to see a helicopter spray the area for mosquitos and flush every bird for miles around, and again at 3:00pm.  Not a stilt to be seen ....  hopefully not slipping back into a dipping phase ....

Saturday, June 17 - Western New York State

And while I was out of town, a BROWN BOOBY was found at Nickerson Beach in Nassau County .... argh!  This species is now a good candidate for my official New York State nemesis bird given the number of times I've missed it in the state (it's either this species or Mew Gull).  I was 450 miles to the West when it was found and briefly considered driving back overnight to be there at dawn to see it.  In the end I was just too tired to do that safely so gave up, and was glad I did as the bird was found dead the next morning.  To drive eight hours to see a dead Booby would not have been a fun thing.....

The reason I was out of town was a good thing though.  One of my goals this year was to have a life list in each of New York's 62 counties.  I was close to this goal, but given a quiet, free weekend, decided to finish it off with a 1,000 mile drive through the West of New York State, filling in the last of the counties.  The birds weren't very exciting, but the birding was pleasant and I got to see some new places and bird some new habitats.  A nice outdoorsy, if very introverted, weekend ... sometimes us introverts need quiet time.

All done.  Now I just have to keep adding to the lists.

Saturday, June 24 - Suffolk County (The Hamptons)

Started the day with a sea-watch from Amagansett and royally messed up.  I had a lot of stuff to schlepp out to the house on Friday so I opted to leave my camera behind .... NEVER leave your camera behind!  As soon as I walked on to the beach I saw two birds that I would really have liked to photograph ... big, dark skua/jaeger types of the sort that could have been big, dark, (rare) Pomarine Jaegers or (much rarer) South Polar Skuas.  In sea-watching you don't get a lot of time as birds hurtle past so, if I'd had my camera, I could have taken a few shots to study later at leisure and work on the ID.  So in the end I had to report these birds as Skua/Jaeger sp. a real lost opportunity.

The day did get better though when I had some friends from the city, some local fishing friends and some of the local hotshot young Long Island birders over for dinner.  Cooked Paella and made Olive Oil Cake ... yes, I can cook ... a very pleasant evening.

My Paella - my giant Paella Pan is one of my prize possessions ....

Sunday, June 25 - (local) East Hampton Spots

Hit a half dozen local spots.  Saw nothing remarkable, but felt good about putting in some local coverage time.

Overall a good June.  Saw a lot of birds, none terribly rare, but I did feel like I spent time with New York's breeding birds for the first time in a few years.  And so on to more adventures in July ....

Henslow's Sparrow, Chuck-wills-widow, and Yellow-throated Warbler ... a Big Memorial Day of Birding

Some Aggressive Year-Listing in New York State

Saturday, May 27 - Cupsogue and Dune Road, Suffolk County

I had three free mornings over Memorial Day this year, the afternoons and evening were chock-a-block with social commitments but the morning were mine, and I was determined to use them.  So up at 5am on Saturday and off to Cupsogue County Park for a morning of coastal birding and hopefully a pile of year birds.

First order of business was a sea-watch.  I am pretty rusty these days as I don't sea-watch nearly as much as I used to, but it didn't take long to get my 'eye in' and there really wasn't all that much happening out there to be honest.  Best seabird by far was a single Sooty Shearwater that whipped by heading East, otherwise the view was just Common Terns, Northern Gannets and Common Loons.  A Black Tern did make a quick appearance, but my hopes of Arctic Tern drew up blank, both here and at the tern roost later.

Dunlins are amazingly cute in breeding plumage

So there are two options to get out to the Shorebird/tern roost at Cupsogue - a short walk through knee-deep muck that sticks to your feet, smells for days, and is full of sharp fragments of clams - or - a slightly longer walk along sandy beaches that involves fording several slightly deeper channels.  I chose the latter and was glad I did because I got to spend some intimate time with some very tame shorebirds.

White-rumped Sandpiper and Ruddy Turnstone

Beyond the common shorebirds and a whole lot of Common Terns and Black Skimmers, there really wasn't a whole lot to see.  I did get a Little Blue Heron (always good in Suffolk County),  Clapper Rail, and a singing Seaside Sparrow.  Not bad in total though, 48 species and a very pleasant start to the weekend.

Barn Swallow and Short-billed Dowitcher

Next stop was Dune Road where I saw a lot of the same things but added a few goodies at Triton Lane where Saltmarsh Sparrow finally surrendered to the year list (after several previous attempts) and I saw another two Clapper Rails (three seen Clapper Rails in a day is never bad).  So by the time I had to head back for a lunch appointment I'd seen 60 species, 7 year birds, and was pretty happy with how this plan was working out.

Common Tern and Red Knot

Sunday, May 28 - Quogue, Suffolk County and Shawangunk, Ulster County

So I thought up this plan, while drunk, on Saturday night.  I got up at 3am (!) and drove over to Quogue to 'do' nightbirds.  First stop was the Dwarf Pines Preserve in West Hampton and in perhaps one of the most shameless pieces of year-listing I've ever done, I pulled into the parking lot, lowered the windows, heard some Eastern Whip-poor-wills, closed the windows, and drove off.

For the next stop in Quogue, I at least gave my target bird the respect of getting out of the car.  Chuck-will's-widows are much scarcer than Eastern Whip-poor-wills in New York State, with perhaps only a hand-full of breeding pairs on Long Island.  The site I stopped at was a traditional site and a 'chuck' had been heard here earlier in the month - I'd also heard this species here on my big year in 2012 - so I was pretty optimistic.  Sure enough, as soon as I got out of the car I heard the "widdle-widdle" call of a Chuck (well that's how they sound to me anyway, I guess the 'chuck' bit doesn't carry as far as the widdles).  All going according to plan ... so back in the car before 5am and a three-hour drive North to Ulster County .... did I mention I was drunk when I though up this plan?

Henslow's Sparrow 

OK, so the Henslow's Sparrow found at Shawangunk earlier this week was bothering me and I really, really, wanted to see this bird ... not sure why, but I did, birding is funny that way.  Perhaps because I'd been there last Saturday and not found it (it was found a few days later on a trail we didn't bird), and perhaps just because they are awesomely cool and I've only ever seen a couple before in 25+ years in New York.  Whatever the reason, I really wanted to see this bird, so off to Shawangunk National Grassland I went, for the second time in two weeks, but this time starting before dawn and a few hours drive further away to the East.

Given that I'd promised to be back for brunch, and had a 4-hour return drive, this trip had to be surgical; I literally had a 30-minute window to get the bird and get back in the car ... and ... it worked out perfectly.

Another shot of Henslow's Sparrow

I got to Shawangunk, and started to hike out to the area that the bird had been seen, but before I even got to the site I could hear the bird singing, and when I got there, a line of giant camera lenses pointed directly to the bird.  Easy!  Plus ... I got bonus Dickcissel and Upland Sandpiper year birds and was back in the car for the drive home after 30 minutes.  Ruthless ... the perfect twitch.

Henslow's Sparrow is a very cool bird though .. they are ...  well .... 'complicated'.  They have a wide range but are nowhere common.  They have ultra specific habitat requirements, which seems to be grassland burned 4 years ago, nothing else will do ... mow the grass every year, no Henslow's.  Then they also have this adorable little song, the bird throws every ounce of it's energy and contorts it's whole body into this song, and what comes out is ... well sort of "twislik" ... how could you not love this species ....

Dickcissel

Monday, May 29 - East Hampton and Great River, Suffolk County

Raining, a lot at 5am, so I really should have gone back to bed, but of course I didn't and ended up getting cold and wet checking three local shorebird spots and seeing ... well not a lot.

Horned Lark

Had time for one last stop on the way in though so, after battling epic Hamptons traffic (Memorial Day and the rain made it perhaps the worst I've ever seen), I nipped in to Bayard Cutting Arboretum in the hopes of getting New York State's only singing Yellow-throated Warbler.

As soon as I got out of the car I could hear a Yellow-throated Warbler singing so I walked across the road and (this so often happens unfortunately) ran into a photographer and his son, who were playing a recording of the bird.
"The bird is right here" he said, and it was, right above them in the tree.
"So why are you playing tape to a breeding bird?" I replied.  "In fact to New York's only pair of breeding Yellow-throated Warblers?".
He sort of mumbled, said he though it was a migrant and that he would stop ... but by the time I got back to the car I could hear him playing again.  This guy with his (hobbyist) mid-price camera gear, was obviously totally focussed on getting a decent shot of this bird, no matter what the cost .... for what end?  A Facebook shot?   Not like this was his livelihood ... but cameras do strange things to people.   A sad way to end a great weekend of birding.  But it was a great weekend of birding.