This morning brought an interesting push of PEREGRINE FALCONS along the ocean front of the South Fork. First, at Mecox Inlet (Watermill, Suffolk Co., where the cut is closed), I noted two Peregrines pass over the pond heading west. Later whilst seawatching from Main Beach in East Hampton, I noted a minimum of 5 Peregrines come in off the sea (including 3 together). These birds were all picked up on the horizon and followed as then headed directly inshore and then overland. I'll be curious to know if other birders further north or west noted a similar movement of Peregrines along the coast.
The bulk of the small terns seem to have departed, but a few linger. Good numbers of gulls were feeding on the ocean and the number of large gulls has grown very significantly compared to last weekend. More than 800 (mostly Great Black-backs) were trailing a scalloping boat off Sagaponack and a couple of hundred were on the flats at Sagg Mains (Bridgehampton, Suffolk Co) where I also noted the following: ** Sagg Mains ** LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL - 3 (2 ads. and 1juv.) Forster's Tern - 3 Common Tern - 1 Great Blue Heron - 19 (with 4 more at Mecox) ATLANTIC BRANT - 2 (my first of the season; flew in off ocean, settled for 2 min then got up and continued east) Green-winged Teal - 10 Black-bellied Plover - 1 (only shorebird present) Lingering Osprey (3) as well as Merlin, Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks. ** Main Beach (11:17 am -12:17 pm) ** Black Scoter - 382 Surf Scoter - 72 White-winged Scoter - 4 dark winged scoter. - 250 Greater Scaup - 1 Black Duck - 1 Green-winged Teal - 2 Common Loon - 2 (both basic plumage) Atlantic Gannet - 73 PARASITIC JAEGER - 2 (ad. and juv. working up and down beach) ROYAL TERN - 1 (ad.) Forster's Tern - 4 Common Tern - 4 Double-crested Cormorant - 193 PEREGRINE - 5 (all followed a similar vector in from SSE) Overall, it was quite birdy this morning with the commoner fall migrants (Yellow-rumped Warblers, Phoebes, Swamp Sparrow, Blue-headed Vireo, Golden-crowned Kinglet, blackbirds etc) being relatively widespread. A couple of BOBOLINK were calling from the weedy field south of Daniel's Lane. Cheers, Angus Wilson New York City & The Springs, NY, USA http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/ -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
