We spent the morning and early afternoon birding at Caumsett State Park in northwestern Suffolk County. The usual suspects were present, including decent numbers of Fox Sparrows, Towhees, Hermit Thrushes, and Catbirds. A Turkey Vulture was a nice find, although we have been seeing a single individual at the park since mid-November. Great Egrets continue to hang in, we saw two today and four at Sunken Meadow State Park on Thursday - I would not be surprised if many LI Christmas Counts record them. We had three species of blackbirds (Red-wing, Rusty, Common Grackle) as well. In keeping with the thread of exotic species that has been on the listserve recently Sue and I were jolted by the appearance of a European Goldfinch in the brush pile at Caumsett. It has been years since I had seen this species on LI (once at a feeder in Long Beach if memory serves) and I needed a field guide to corroborate my initial identification. Well, times change and so do bird guides, Nat. Geo. did not have the bird in the book (Sibley has it in the back of the book under "Exotic Finches"). It was nice to get a splash of color after looking through numerous brown sparrows, but a nice Fieldfare would have been better. A photo of the Goldfinch can be seen at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kfeustel/
Ken Feustel -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
