Yesterday, Lynne Hertzog and I (Richard Fried) birded from Belmont Lake to E. Hampton. We arrived at Belmont Lake at 8:15 am to find most of the ice melted and most of the geese already gone. There was a Graylag Goose amongst the 180-200 Canadas, but the Barnacle Goose had already left, presumably for the cemetery, where it was reported at 11:15 am by Kenneth Thompson. It appears that the geese leave the lake earlier when the weather is warm, and sleep in on the ice when it is cold.
The Northern Bobwhite were nowhere to be found at Connetquot State Park Preserve. We met Sam Janazzo there who said that the park director had told him that the quail disappeared when the snow melted. There were, however, 13 Canvasback, in addition to the 6 Canada Geese, 2 Mute Swan, 32 Gadwall, 4 Mallard, 31 Ring-necked Duck, 5 Lesser Scaup, 11 Common Merganser, 21 Ruddy Duck, 1 Double-crested Cormorant, 2 Great Blue Heron, 3 American Coot and a Belted Kingfisher on the Main Pond. We found a single Wilson’s Snipe and a Killdeer sleeping in the open on the north end of Sans Souci Lake in Sayville, both seemingly oblivious to the Red Fox prowling the tree line close behind them. That may explain why we didn’t find the second Snipe that John Gluth reported there earlier in the week. Despite the warmer conditions and lack of ice to the north, the ponds at Timber Point Country Club were still iced over when we went to see if last winter’s Tundra Swan had returned – it hadn’t. There were quite a number of waterfowl on Noyack Bay to the west of Sag Harbor, the Highlight being the continuing adult male Barrow’s Goldeneye in with the flock of 40 Common Goldeneye, best viewed from the beach at the west end of Noyack-Long Beach Road. The bay also held at least 30 Surf Scoter, 80 Long-tailed Duck, 50 Bufflehead, 2 Red-throated Loon, 1 Common Loon, and a Horned Grebe. Our final stop was Hook Pond and Further Lane in the late afternoon in E. Hampton, where there were virtually no geese and no Greater White-fronts in particular. There was a Merlin and an assortment of sparrows along the east side of the pond. Good birding, Richard Fried -- 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/ --
