Certainly not as "birdy" as the reports from other sites suggested but there were birds in the sites mentioned in the SUBJECT line. However, one had to cover a lot of ground to get them. I wondered if the winds had anything to do with what was observed since it was windy at both Fort Tilden and RIIS park for most of the morning.
Birding with Isaac Grant for some time at Fort Tilden, RIIS Park and finally along archery road at Floyd Bennett Field. Our overall warbler tally for the day was 14 with ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER being the highlight in that group, seen only by Isaac before I ran into him at Fort Tilden. A second pass for Isaac and first for me near the golf course at RIIS Park resulted in us finding a DICKCISSEL near the south west corner of the fence line of the golf course. Earlier, we also had LINCOLN SPARROW in a scrubby area at the beginning of the trail as you made your west towards the Hawk Watch platform at Fort Tilden. Later on at Floyd Bennett Field, in another scrubby area along Archery Road we had very nice looks at a PHILADELPHIA VIREO. While we did have multiples of warblers species, the numbers were nothing like those we were picking up on the wire being reported from other city parks where the birds appeared to be more concentrated. Our only significant multiple worth mentioning is Common Yellowthroat with a conservative count of 110 when combining all three sites. As far as hawk flights, we did have 3 American Kestrels, 1 Merlin and 1 Osprey at Fort Tilden and 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk at Floyd Bennett Field. Other flight movements noted included good numbers of Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, Cedar Waxwings and a few Bobolinks, most seen at Fort Tilden. "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson Andrew Baksh Queens, NY www.birdingdude.blogspot.com Sent from my iPad -- 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/ --
