Just a quick follow up to today's Black-headed Gull sighting. Thank
you, Shane, for posting.
Heydi Lopes and I arrived at the Veterans Memorial Pier next to Owl's
Head Park at around 10:15am. Northwest winds were savaging the fishing
pier, but there were still a couple of hundred Ring-billed Gulls in
three distinct flocks hunkered down around the bases of several picnic
benches attached to the pier. I'm guessing that these structures offer
a little bit of a windbreak. Anyway, we found the adult black-headed
in the last flock we checked, near the end of the pier. The birds
flushed, at one point, but the BHGU flew back and join a flock closer
to the beginning of the pier. At around 10:25am a really strong gust
caused all the gulls to lift off, but it appeared that the black-
headed flew back to the original roost, farther out on the pier. We
left shortly thereafter, but stopped to talk to Jeff Ritter, who had
just arrived to look for the gull. I hope he found it.
Later in the morning Heydi and I headed over to Floyd Bennett Field.
When we were stopped at the intersection of Avenue V and Flatbush
Avenue, facing Mill Basin, I noticed two very large, dark birds
soaring over the water. Heydi made the turn onto Flatbush as I focused
on the birds through the car window. One looked like a Black Vulture.
I told her to turn into the parking lot at "Nick's Lobster". We hopped
out of the car with our bins and got great looks at two Black Vultures
as they battled the wind, soaring over the Marine Park Golf Course. At
home I referred to Google Earth and the birds were heading West-North-
West, in the general direction of the Verrazano Bridge. Perhaps, it
was the Fort Wadsworth pair out for a Sunday stroll.
Good birding,
Rob
The City Birder Weblog
http://citybirder.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
3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
