Hello, Birders. Earlier today, Thursday, Oct. 29th, I visited Jones Beach, Nassau County, that labyrinthine and byzantine complex of barricades, entrance gates, and mindlessly vast parking lots. First, I went to Field 6, where a very large flock of shorebirds was strewn out along the beach just above the high tide line. I think I got reasonably accurate counts of 400 Black-bellied Plovers, 360 Red Knots, and 8,250 Dunlins. (And a few Sanderlings and Killdeer.) Birds apparently on diurnal migration included 290 westbound Double-crested Cormorants and 4 westbound American Pipits. One of the knots was a red bird in basic plumage (with "breeding aspect"); see Birding, May 2009, p. 49, for perspective on shorebirds in basic plumage with breeding aspects. Second, I went to the U.S. Coast Guard station, where there was another nice pod of shorebirds, among them 475 Black-bellied Plovers, 1 American Golden-Plover, 7 Semipalmated Plovers, 2 Killdeer, 31 American Oystercatchers, 2 Greater Yellowlegs, 14 Sanderlings, and "only" 1,700 Dunlin. There was a pretty steady passage of westbound Double-crested Cormorants while I was at the coast guard station, and a decent smattering of Brant. Other waterbirds at the coast guard station included 1 Long-tailed Duck, 2 Common Loons, 4 Great Egrets, 1 Laughing Gull, and 2 Royal Terns. The landbird scene was pretty lame, although a neat sight was a tight flock of 6 noisy Red-breasted Nuthatches working a broadleaf tree. I heard and saw about 210 hirundinids, all of them straightforward Tree Swallows as far as I could tell. Otherwise, it was slim pickin's, with seasonal stuff like Merlin, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (a bit tardy), Hermit Thrush, Gray Catbird, and Savannah Sparrow. Among the many Yellow-rumped Warblers was one that, were it 1,800 miles west of here, I might well have called a Myrtle x Audubon's intergrade. There's no chance, I realize, that any of y'all will run out to see a Yellow-rumped Warbler that might possibly be harboring a few -auduboni- genes, but--what the heck?--it was last seen at 40.588282 N, 73.556390 W. Keeping company with a large number of normal Myrtles, heading west... ------------------------------- Ted Floyd tedfloy...@hotmail.com Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado ------------------------------- Ted Floyd Editor, Birding ------------------------------- Please support the American Birding Association: Click on http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482 to search the internet. Check out the American Birding Association on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22934255714 Check out the American Birding Association on Twitter: http://twitter.com/abaoutreach Please visit the website of the American Birding Association: http://www.aba.org _________________________________________________________________ New Windows 7: Find the right PC for you. Learn more. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pc-scout/default.aspx?CBID=wl&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_pcscout:102009 --
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