Icy Jones Beach, snowy Boonton (Longspur, Shrike)

The weather channel suggested sun through midday, followed by cloud. In fact the cloud moved in about 5 nanoseconds after dawn at Jones Beach and it was especially dark out there. In addition to the expected snow this area had apparently got hit by some freezing rain. At least under these circumstances you know it's winter, in contrast to the rest of the rather mild January.

On the beach there were a few Horned Larks, a possible Savannah Sparrow, and nothing else. Out in the heavy surf there were feeding flocks of Gannets that extended into Jones Inlet, a flock of something like 25 Common Eiders just north of the inlet, and the common mix of Loons and Long-tailed Ducks. The size of the Eider flock is notable for Point Lookout/Jones Beach - normally you see one or two, but is much smaller than the large flock currently at Barnegat Inlet in NJ.

There was nothing to speak of at the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center lot/boardwalk so I spent quite a lot of time at the Coast Guard station. This wasn't because of the three female Brown-headed Cowbirds - this is my least favorite native species - but there was a single Snow Bunting and single Lapland Longspur feeding on the edges of the snow-packed lawn. This is partly why I went to Jones - after snowfall you can often see Snow Bunting flocks with a few Longspurs in this general area. Finally, on the drive out I saw an American Pipit along the roadside near the intersection with Ocean Parkway.

It took me a fair while to warm up after that, but I drove through NYC and out via I-80 to Boonton to look for the reported Northern Shrike. Took me a little time to find it, at least in part because of the bozo birder factor. I had a conversation with a local birder in a truck who indicated that some other people had flushed the shrike out of the cedars by walking into them. These birders were loud in multiple ways: loud conversation, and also subsequently sitting in the parking lot with their car engines running (one of them a VW diesel, quite loud) and door slamming. Finally the idiots left. I'll assume these are newbies but they also attracted attention from other birders that turned up while I was there.

Finally I got the Northern Shrike, which turned up at an apparently favored perch near the ball field, then flew along the tree line closer. It didn't linger for long. Subsequently I spied it at the top of a tall tree further away and got record shots of it. I didn't see any barring or brown coloration on the bird, and the thin black mask was solid, so this bird appears to be an adult - I think that all the other individuals that I've seen in NY-NJ have been immatures.


Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Northern Gannet
Canada Goose
Brant
American Black Duck
Mallard
Common Eider
Long-tailed Duck
Red-breasted Merganser
Northern Harrier
Peregrine Falcon
Dunlin
Northern Shrike
Horned Lark
American Pipit
Yellow-rumped Warbler
(possible Savannah Sparrow glimpsed in beach dunes)
Song Sparrow
Lapland Longspur
Snow Bunting
Brown-headed Cowbird

Stamford, Bronx, Long Island, Jamaica Bay

One of my period dark-dark trips with long road miles, I started off at the Fork-tailed Flycatcher spot in Stamford, CT just after dawn and while the bird took a little while to turn up it did pose very nicely indeed for photographs. There were also a few roosting Wild Turkeys and a couple of Monk Parakeets. The Fork-tailed (FTFL) was at this site Nov 17th-Dec 4th.

I had chosen to look at the FTFL because it was fairly close to my main interest for the day - a banded Barnacle Goose of known wild origin in Pelham Bay Park at Orchard Beach. So after heading back into NYC from Stamford I spent two hours combing the local area for it, including some grassy areas slightly further afield. I was sadly unsuccessful. I later learned that some photographers had got far too close the previous day and scared it off. That's a lot of people hours wasted as a result of selfishness. Update: this Barnacle Goose turned up again on Dec 4th in Stratford CT, roughly 45 miles to the west, again associated with a Canada Goose flock.

After some frustration at Pelham Bay I went south to Jones Beach West End and spent a little time looking at the somewhat distant Northern Loggerhead Shrike and chatting with other birders - the shrike in particular is a little small and a little dark but otherwise seems a decent match for Northern over the rather similar Loggerhead (see discussion of this both above and below). Shai Mitra pulled out a distant Kittiwake over the ocean with his scope, but the Northern Gannets were rather more obvious. A Merlin was hunting the swallows (presumed Tree, but Cave is possible) and later on the pigeons at the Coast Guard Station. At the Coast Guard Station there was a big flock of Brant and shorebirds (Dunlin, American Oystercatcher, Black-bellied Plover and a few Red Knot) and a dispersed flock of Bonaparte's Gulls in the bay. Since there wasn't that much of interest at Jones I went around to Point Lookout which used to be a big spot for Bonaparte's several years ago, and there were some off the park. However they were not especially concentrated, being spread out all over the inlet, bay (and probably the beach). This flock holds multiple Little Gulls and at least one Black-headed Gull but unless they concentrate in one place finding them will be a challenge. A small flock of Common Eider flew in and out of the inlet while I was there.

Finally I spent the late afternoon at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, photographing ducks flying in and out of the West Pond. All the usual suspects were there, with the exception of Canvasback which seemed to be curiously absent. The Snow Goose count was a grand total of 5 birds seen in flight as I was exiting the refuge. The list from Jamaica Bay is:

Snow Goose
Brant
Gadwall
American Wigeon
American Black Duck
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Northern Harrier
Cooper's Hawk
Dunlin

Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Loggerhead Shrike, Common Ground-Dove

My only previous Fork-tailed Flycatcher was one in Morrisville PA in early June 2006, seen right after my "flycatcher special" trip of May-June 2006. I got no photos of that bird, so I was interested in seeing and photographing the one that was up in Stamford CT. Usually a one or two day wonder (as with the PA bird) the FTFL in CT was found Weds and stayed through at least Sunday at Cove Island Park in Stamford (edit: found on Nov 17th, it stayed all the way through Dec 4th - remarkable). I saw it on early Sat morning where it was already drawing a crowd at dawn. The volunteer gathering names said that birders had come from as far away as SC and MI for it. Other birds at this place included a small flock of Cedar Waxwings and a similar-sized flock of Monk Parakeets.

Stamford is not that far beyond NY, so after a couple of hours with the FTFL I went down to Jones Beach. The wind was quite strong at that point, so I didn't see much of note from the Coast Guard basin (Common Loon, Long-tailed Duck, Red-breasted Merganser) but the flock of Snow Buntings was feeding on the grass growing up in the cracks of the West End 2 parking lot. I went on to Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center and found my target bird - the
Northern
Loggerhead Shrike - hunting from perches on and around the boardwalk and not particularly phased by the conditions. Considering that I've also seen Northern Shrike in Duluth MN in late December the conditions were almost tropical by comparison. The bird was a first winter one with faint barring on the breast. Two Northern Harriers were the only other predators I saw there, and there were some American Black Ducks and Gadwall in the pond between West End 2 and the Nature Center but otherwise things appeared pretty quiet. Inevitably there were Brant in the West End median strip and I also saw a fly-by flock of Dunlin.

Subsequent queries about the ID of the shrike species led to a discussion on NYSbirds-L and ultimately BIRDWG01 where it emerged that the consensus was strongly in favor of Loggerhead over Northern Shrike. While this is atypical of a Loggerhead it has too many features at variance with Northern Shrike to be consistent with it. Loggerhead is if anything even less expected than Northern in that location at this time of year.

And then since I was so close I went a little further east to Captree State Park. I wasn't really that psyched about the Common Ground-Dove but I'd been told it was a first NY State record so I went for a quick look for it. I found it skulking on the northern edge of the southern parking lot, mostly behind the concrete blocks in the parking lot, but it showed chestnut wing undersides as it flew. Very skittish that bird, and for that reason I decided not to hang out for photos and stress it more. Instead I headed for home.

It is an ex-Murre, it has ceased to be

(If you're not familiar with Monty Python's Parrot Sketch .....)

The major reason for the trip onto Long Island on Saturday morning was to see the Thick-billed Murre at Hempstead Lake State Park. I knew it was sick, so there was a risk, nevertheless I wasn't entirely happy that I was told the bird had died before I even got the spotting 'scope out of the car.

C'est la vie.

Instead I went to Massapequa Preserve, further to the east. At the pond near the Pittsburgh Ave entrance there were a good number of waterfowl, especially Green-winged Teal. Also present were Gadwall, Mallard, American Wigeon, Mute Swan and the inevitable Canada Goose. The best birds were five Long-billed Dowitchers and a small flock of fly-over probable Pine Siskin (call and silhouette fit, but I like to see more on a year bird). Black-capped Chickadee and Winter Wren were also nice firsts for the year - I had heard but not seen another Winter Wren in Princeton in the previous week.

Then on to Jones Beach SP where I started at the West End at the Coastguard Station which was very quiet (one Long-tailed Duck at the dock). More interesting was a duck hunting boat (and "hunter" both in full camo) with a 500mm lens pursuing pictures of ducks in the inlet and bay. I mean pursuing literally, and I think he was flushing more birds than he was getting pictures of. West End 2 was similarly dead with the first of many Song Sparrows along the roadside, but West End 1 (Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center) was more productive. There was one flighty flock of 50-60 Snow Buntings milling around, and on the boardwalk there were Yellow-rumped Warbler, a few more Song Sparrows, many Savannah Sparrows including a couple of the "Ipswich" subspecies, Northern Harrier and Horned Lark. I didn't manage to pick out any Lapland Longspurs but there were many passerines in this section. There was also a single immature Snow Goose in with the Canada Geese feeding in the median strip outside West End 1.

Next I went to West End 6, where I scanned the ocean looking for ducks and Gannets. No Gannets but quite a few Long-tailed Ducks, some Surf Scoter, two Black Scoter and one fly-by Greater Scaup showing the full extent of the wing bar rather nicely. Both loons, Horned Grebe and a mere handful of Sanderlings were also present.

Finally, and to complete the rare bird strike-out sweep for the day, I went to Camman's Pond in Merrick where the Ross's Goose was nowhere to be seen but there were a decent number of dabbling ducks on the pond including Northern Shoveler, new for the day/year.

Aggregate list:

Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Horned Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Snow Goose
Canada Goose
Brant
Mute Swan
Gadwall
American Wigeon
American Black Duck
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Long-tailed Duck
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Sanderling
Bonaparte's Gull
Horned Lark
Winter Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Snow Bunting
House Finch
probable Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch